Crisp Air Quotes

I hate this feeling. Like I'm here, but I'm not. Like someone cares. But they don't. Like I belong somewhere else, anywhere but here, and escape lies just past that snowy window, cool and crisp as the February air.

My heart is drumming in my chest so hard it aches, but it's the good kind of ache, like the feeling you get on the first real day of autumn, when the air is crisp and the leaves are all flaring at the edges and the wind smells just vaguely of smoke - like the end and the beginning of something all at once.

Well, good-bye for now," he said, rolling his neck as if we hadn't been talking about anything important at all. He bowed at the waist, those wings vanishing entirely, and had begun to fade into the nearest shadow when he went rigid. His eyes locked on mine wide and wild, and his nostrils flared. Shock—pure shock flashed across his features at whatever he saw on my face, and he stumbled back a step. Actually stumbled. "What is—" I began. He disappeared—simply disappeared, not a shadow in sight—into the crisp air.

I was drinking in the surroundings: air so crisp you could snap it with your fingers and greens in every lush shade imaginable offset by autumnal flashes of red and yellow.

Isn't it ironic . . . we ignore those who adore us, adore those who ignore us, hurt those who love us, and love those who hurt us. Every flaw he held and every perfection he flaunted made her love him even more. "I hate this feeling. Like I'm here, but I'm not. Like someone cares. But they don't. Like I belong somewhere else, anywhere but here, and escape lies just past that snowy window, cool and crisp as the February air.

In the end, that was the problem with romance. It was so easy to romanticise romance because it was everywhere. It was in music and on TV and in filtered Instagram photos. It was in the air, crisp and alive with fresh possibility. It was in falling leaves, crumbling wooden doorways, scuffed cobblestones and fields of dandelions. It was in the touch of hands, scrawled letters, crumpled sheets and the golden hour. A soft yawn, early morning laugher, shoes lined up together dy the door. Eyes across a dance floor. I could see it all, all the time, all around, but when I got closer, I found nothing was there.

Close your eyes and turn your face into the wind. Feel it sweep along your skin in an invisible ocean of exultation. Suddenly, you know you are alive.

The autumn twilight turned into deep and early night as they walked. Tristran could smell the distant winter on the air--a mixture of night-mist and crisp darkness and the tang of fallen leaves.

Outside, there was that predawn kind of clarity, where the momentum of living has not quite captured the day. The air was not filled with conversation or thought bubbles or laughter or sidelong glances. Everyone was sleeping, all of their ideas and hopes and hidden agendas entangled in the dream world, leaving this world clear and crisp and cold as a bottle of milk in the fridge.

I hate this feeling. Like I'm here, but I'm not. Like someone cares. But they don't. Like I belong somewhere else, anywhere but here, and escape lies just past that snowy window, cool and crisp as the February air. I considered the streets beyond, bleak as the bleached bones of wilderness scaffolding my heart. Just a stone's throw away.

It occurred to me then, like one of those moments I’d remember years from now . . . the crisp November air, the amber-colored field lights so bright they eclipsed the moon. The electricity of the win suffusing every breath, every cell, every particle of the world that was Vanquer, Texas . . .  Everyone has a story.

I like bars just after they open for the evening. When the air inside is still cool and clean and everything is shiny and the barkeep is giving himself that last look in the mirror to see if his tie is straight and his hair is smooth. I like the neat bottles on the bar back and the lovely shining glasses and the anticipation. I like to watch the man mix the first one of the evening and put it down on a crisp mat and put the little folded napkin beside it. I like to taste it slowly. The first quiet drink of the evening in a quiet bar—that's wonderful.

FALLING IN LOVE WITH OCTOBER Leaves descending to the ground, Orange, magenta, green & brown The cool crisp breezes in the air, Autumn season must be here

It still smelled like autumn here. Pine needles and cold, crisp air, bonfires and moldering leaves, the world dying as it readied to be reborn.

It was a feeling in the crisp twilight air; it was a hush across the hills. The ghosts were gathering themselves, building up their strength to wander the fields of October and speak to those who would listen.

The fruition of the year had come and the night should have been fine with a moon in the sky and the crisp sharp promise of frost in the air, but it wasn't that way. It rained and little puddles of water shone under the street lamps on Main Street. In the woods in the darkness beyond the Fair Ground water dripped from the black trees.

The air's crisp with the smell of autumn, and the first few leaves have started to change color. The streets have that family-friendly feel. Store windows already have pumpkins and witches' hats in them.

This morning I woke up before the alarm clock went off and the sky outside was a big red ocean. You're beautiful when you're sleeping so I spent an hour observing the way you breathe. Inhale, exhale, without a thought of tomorrow. The window was open and the air was so crisp and I couldn't imagine how to ever ask for more than this.

The air is so crisp it gives me a brief, delusive sense of health and youth. those I don't have but I have learned not to scorn the substitutes: quiet, plenty of time, and a job to spend it on.

Rain on roof outside window, gray light, deep covers and warm blankets. Rain and nip of autumn in air; nostalgia, itch to work better and bigger. That crisp edge of autumn.

Rained gently last night, just enough to wash the town clean, and then today a clean crisp fat spring day, the air redolent, the kind of green minty succulent air you'd bottle if you could and snort greedily on bleak, wet January evenings when the streetlights hzzzt on at four in the afternoon and all existence seems hopeless and sad.

I want open fields, crisp air, and the Rocky Mountains at the end of the horizon. I want a man who smells like leather, looks like a glass of bourbon, and who calls me princess while drawing on my back.

You're my moon, my stars, you're my sunrises and sunsets. You're the crisp mountain air, the first layer of snow, and that steady rainfall after a humid day. You're just everything.

Montana should come with a surgeon general warning that it's addictive. The sky is big and blue, and the air is always fresh and crisp and scented with pine. There's a frontier spirit, but also a calmness, beauty in the landscape that slows your pulse.

We were in the autumnlands. Dim as it was, the forest glowed. The golden leaves flashing by blazed like sparks caught in the updraft of a fire. A scarlet carpet unrolled before us, rich and flawless as velvet. Rising from the forest floor, the black, tangled roots breathed a bluish mist that reduced the farthest trees' trunks to ghostly silhouettes, yet left their foliage's luminous hues untouched. Vivid moss speckled the branches like tarnished copper. The crisp spice of pine sap infused the cool air over a musty perfume of dry leaves. A knot swelled in my throat. I couldn't look away. There was too much of it, too fast. I'd never be able to drink it all in...

The air is so crisp it gives me a brief, delusive sense of health and youth. Those I don’t have, but I have learned not to scorn the substitutes: quiet, plenty of time, and a job to spend it on.

Every intoxicating delight of early spring was in the air. The breeze that fanned her cheek was laden with subtle perfume and the crisp, fresh odor of unfolding leaves.

She breathed in the crisp autumn air, hoping the loveliness of nature would somehow cleanse her soul and overshadow her sorrow.

It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.

On a clear day the Oregon coast is the most beautiful place on earth—clear and crisp and clean, a rich green in the land and a bright blue in the sky, the air fat and salty and bracing, the ocean spreading like a grin. Brown pelicans rise and fall in their chorus lines in the wells of the waves, cormorants arrow, an eagle kingly queenly floats south high above the water line.

Her chest full of crisp air and inspiration, her feet atop a forgettable mountain where the stars make you feel insignificant and important all at once. And she sang.

Travis Hunter’s blood froze in his veins at the piercing female scream that echoed through the forest. He was moving just as the sharp scent of blood tinted the crisp mountain air mixed with the rancid smell of the rogue mutants.

The night was cold, chilling the sweat on his face, but the air was as sweet and crisp as the first bite of a fall apple. Above him was a half-moon and what seemed like a trillion stars. To match the trillion pebbles, just as mysterious, that we walk over everyday, he thought. Mystery above, mystery below. Weight, mass, reality: mystery all around.

I like bars just after they open for the evening. When the air inside is still cool and clean and everything is shiny and the barkeep is giving himself that last look in the mirror to see if his tie is straight and his hair is smooth. I like the neat bottles on the bar back and the lovely shining glasses and the anticipation. I like to watch the man mix the first one of the evening and put it down on a crisp mat and put the little folded napkin beside it. I like to taste it slowly. The first quiet drink of the evening in a quiet bar—that’s wonderful.

I drew in a breath of crisp December air and stood perfectly still, savoring the feel, the sound, and the smell of the world around me, sensations that would have passed by me unnoticed had I never met Carl Iverson.

I suppose you think you know what autumn looks like. Even if you live in the Los Angeles dreamed of by September’s schoolmates, you have surely seen postcards and photographs of the kind of autumn I mean. The trees go all red and blazing orange and gold, and wood fires burn at night so everything smells of crisp branches. The world rolls about delightedly in a heap of cider and candy and apples and pumpkins and cold stars rush by through wispy, ragged clouds, past a moon like a bony knee. You have, no doubt, experienced a Halloween or two. Autumn in Fairyland is all that, of course. You would never feel cheated by the colors of a Fairyland Forest or the morbidity of a Fairyland moon. And the Halloween masks! Oh, how they glitter, how they curl, how their beaks and jaws hook and barb! But to wander through autumn in Fairyland is to look into a murky pool, seeing only a hazy reflection of the Autumn Provinces’ eternal fall. And human autumn is but a cast-off photograph of that reflecting pool, half burnt and drifting through the space between us and Fairyland. And so I may tell you that the leaves began to turn red as September and her friends rushed through the suddenly cold air on their snorting, roaring high wheels, and you might believe me. But no red you have ever seen could touch the crimson bleed of the trees in that place. No oak gnarled and orange with October is half as bright as the boughs that bent over September’s head, dropping their hard, sweet acorns into her spinning spokes. But you must try as hard as you can. Squeeze your eyes closed, as tight as you can, and think of all your favorite autumns, crisp and perfect, all bound up together like a stack of cards. That is what it is like, the awful, wonderful brightness of Fairy colors. Try to smell the hard, pale wood sending up sharp, green smoke into the afternoon. To feel to mellow, golden sun on your skin, more gentle and cozier and more golden than even the light of your favorite reading nook at the close of the day.

The last time you came to see me there were anchors in your eyes, hardback books in your posture. You were the five star general of sureness, a crisp white tuxedo of a man. I was fiddling with my worn coat pockets, puffing false confidence ghosts in the cold January air. My hands were shitty champagne flutes brimming with cheap merlot. I couldn’t touch you without ruining you, so I didn’t touch you at all. It’s when you’re on the brink of something that you lose your balance. You told me that once. When I can’t bring myself to say what I need to, my heart plays Russian Roulette with my throat. I swear I fired that night, but, nothing. Someday, I’ll show you the bullet I had for you, after time has done the wash. I’ll take it out of the jar of missed opportunities. We’ll hold it up to the light. You’ll roll it around your mouth like a fallen tooth. You won’t forgive me exactly, but we’ll laugh about how small it is. We’ll wonder how such a little thing could ever have meant so much.

He returned her love. He lusted after her sweet young body. He wanted her the way he wanted to breathe the spring air. He had never loved anyone before. He had not known even what this feeling for his tiny slave was. Now in the crisp, clear spring sunlight, he knew.

October air, complete with dancing leaves and sighing winds greeted him as he stepped from the bus onto the dusty highway. Coolness embraced. The scent of burning wood hung crisp in the air from somewhere far in the distance. His backpack dropped in a flutter of dust. He surveyed dying cornfields from the gas station bus stop. Seeing this place, for the first time in over twenty years, brought back a flood of memories, long buried and forgotten.

On winter mornings when it's dark and the air is crisp, the lights are still shining and the first customers are gathered at the counter like conspirators. They give you the illusion that the day will be a new adventure. And that illusion stats with you for at least some of the morning.

She felt strong and blissfully empty gliding through the crisp November air, enjoying the intermittent warmth of the sun as it filtered down through the overhanging trees, which were mostly stripped of their foliage. It was that trashy, post-Halloween part of the fall, yellow and orange leaves littering the ground

But what Dakota most enjoyed about the beginning of winter was the crispness of the air (that practically demanded the wearing of knits) and the way that tough New Yorkers - on the street, in elevators, in subways - were suddenly willing to risk a smile. To make a connection with a stranger. To finally see one another after strenuously avoiding eye contact all year.

The air was fresh and crisp and had a distinct smell which was a mixture of the dried leaves on the ground and the smoke from the chimneys and the sweet ripe apples that were still clinging onto the branches in the orchard behind the house.

the air had that magically still quality common in autumn. The whole world felt crisp and bright, and time seemed suspended.

The air in his lungs is crisp and bright and difficult to breathe. Everything feels too much. Too wide and too open. Too cold and too strange.

The day was blossoming into a truly lovely example of autumn... the air was crisp, but the sun was warm

No Absolutes The sound of the human voice like the bell ring of metal and crisp air under grey skies— romantic yet ominous— Don’t worry about contradictions. No one is innocent. No one is guilty. We are all misunderstood even by ourselves. Yet when we know love we know everything.

Autumn was his favourite time of year, not simply for its changing colours but for the crispness in the air and the sharpness of the light. As the leaves fell the landscape revealed itself, like a painting being cleaned or a building being renewed. He could see the underlying shape of things. This was what he wanted, he decided: moments of clarity and silence.

She relaxed, fitting perfectly into my body. In the crisp, cold February air, we swayed together, moving to our own personal beat. For one moment, we escaped hell. No teachers, no therapist, no well-meaning friends, no nightmares-just the two of us, dancing.

Those who appreciate winter generally orient toward the season's wonders: coziness and gathering around a fire, crisp air and starry skies, slowed-down rituals and chance for rest. For people with this mindset, winter is not a limiting time of year to dread but a time full of opportunity to anticipate. In Norway, I learned that we are not condemned to waste the winter months, throwing away the season, wishing for spring. We can change our mindsets and, as a result, change our experience of winter--and of our lives.

It is Autumn, as you know, and things are beginning to die. It is so wonderful to be out in the crisp Fall air, with the leaves turning gold and the grass turning brown and the warmth going out of the sunlight and big hot fires in the fireplace while Buddy rakes the lawn. We see a lot of bombs on TV because we watch it a lot more, now that the days get shorter and shorter, and darkness comes so soon, and all the flowers die from freezing.

In the end, that was the problem with romance. It was so easy to romanticize romance because it was everywhere. It was in music and on TV and in filtered Instagram photos. It was in the air, crisp and alive with fresh possibility. It was in falling leaves, crumbling wooden doorways, scuffed cobblestones, and fields of dandelions. It was in the touch of hands, scrawled letters, crumpled sheets, and the golden hour. A soft yawn, early morning laughter, shoes lined up together by the door. Eyes across a dance floor. I could see it all, all the time, all around, but when I got closer, I found that nothing was there. A mirage.

The fresh and crisp air of the country reminds us that our blood surges from of the natural world and how tied we are to the sprung rhythms of earth and sky, weather and season.

I pictured growing old together, sitting in the gardens of a country home, the salty sea air crisp and soothing while a cadaver waited for us in our own personal morgue.

Always more, always hungrily scratching for more. But there were times, quiet moments, when our mother was sleeping, when she hadn’t slept in two days, and any noise, any stair creak, any shut door, any stifled laugh, any voice at all, might wake her, those still, crystal mornings, when we wanted to protect her, this confused goose of a woman, this stumbler, this gusher, with her backaches and headaches and her tired, tired ways, this uprooted Brooklyn creature, this tough talker, always with tears when she told us she loved us, her mixed-up love, her needy love, her warmth, those mornings when sunlight found the cracks in our blinds and laid itself down in crisp strips on our carpet, those quiet mornings when we’d fix ourselves oatmeal and sprawl onto our stomachs with crayons and paper, with glass marbles that we were careful not to rattle, when our mother was sleeping, when the air did not smell like sweat or breath or mold, when the air was still and light, those mornings when silence was our secret game and our gift and our sole accomplishment—we wanted less: less weight, less work, less noise, less father, less muscles and skin and hair. We wanted nothing, just this, just this.

Also her perfume, which mingled with the crisp air off the lake below, creating an intoxicating mixture of damp earth and leaves and water and girl. Not woman, in Sully’s opinion. Girl.

The viewless air seemed to be flocking with hidden listeners. The very clearness and the crystal silence were their ambush. He alone seemed to be the target of cold and hostile scrutiny. There was not a breath to breathe in this crisp, pale sunshine. It was all too rare, too thin. The shadows lay like wings everlastingly folded.

I later learned that while Elsie was at Crownsville, scientists often conducted research on patients there without consent, including one study titled "Pneumoencephalographic and skull X-ray studies in 100 epileptics." Pneumoencephalography was a technique developed in 1919 for taking images of the brain, which floats in a sea of liquid. That fluid protects the brain from damage, but makes it very difficult to X-ray, since images taken through fluid are cloudy. Pneumoencephalography involved drilling holes into the skulls of research subjects, draining the fluid surrounding their brains, and pumping air or helium into the skull in place of the fluid to allow crisp X-rays of the brain through the skull. the side effects--crippling headaches, dizziness, seizures, vomiting--lasted until the body naturally refilled the skull with spinal fluid, which usually took two to three months. Because pneumoencephalography could cause permanent brain damage and paralysis, it was abandoned in the 1970s. "There is no evidence that the scientists who did research on patients at Crownsville got consent from either the patients of their parents. Bases on the number of patients listed in the pneumoencephalography studyand the years it was conducted, Lurz told me later, it most likely involved every epileptic child in the hospital including Elsie. The same is likely true of at lest on other study called "The Use of Deep Temporal Leads in the Study of Psychomotor Epilepsy," which involved inserting metal probes into patients' brains.

It was a beautiful Indian summer morning and perfect for savoring a few extra minutes in bed. There was a breeze blowing through my bedroom window; the air was as crisp as a bite of a fresh red apple.

my soul is still homeless sometimes in between slumber and consciousness i sleepwalk. my mind not yet aware i shuffle out the front door the crisp open air and night sky still call me. at night in between slumber and consciousness i sleepwalk. my soul not yet aware that my wanderings are over and I have a home.

Even in the crisp night air, being near her felt like standing under the sun. Warmth seeped from her body and flowed along the ground, like a river of heat seeking to penetrate the frozen places inside his chest.

However, at the end of the night I saw Nick stomping out to the car park, obviously in a terrible mood. They take their lives so seriously, these young people. “Just appreciate the fact that you can stomp so energetically,” I wanted to say to him. I’d pay a million dollars to be Alice and Elisabeth’s age again for just one day. I’d dance like Olivia’s butterfly and bite into crisp green apples and run across hot sand into the surf, and I’d walk, as far as I wanted, wherever I wanted, in big loping, leaping strides, with my head held high and my lungs filling with air.

Everything changes in the fall- the light, the air, the colors...even the tick of the clock. Grant yourself a moment to discover the glory of autumn and listen to the Earth. Heal your soul by letting things go and fill your heart with joy and happiness by dancing with the leaves in the crisp air. Radiate your magnificence and celebrate your inner witch".

You must make small steps into the air of being yourself. Find yourself in an empty landscape, build your character, and then spend the rest of your life demonstrating it.

I loved every bit of this season—when the air turned crisp and you could pull all the warm sweaters out of the back of your closet. It felt like the equivalent of wrapping yourself up in a warm, cozy blanket with a cup of hot apple cider in your hands.

Roaming the streets of Manhattan on foot had always been one of my favorite ways to find inspiration. There's so much to see and smell (not all of it pleasant, except this time of year, which smells of roasted cashews, crisp air, and gingerbread lattes).

Despite the dangers Shannow loved night riding. The air was crisp and clean and the world slept. Moonlight gave the trees a shimmering quality, and every rock glistened with silver. He rode slowly, allowing the horse to pick its way carefully over the trail.

She stood at the edge of a glassy river lined with impossibly tall trees, fanning out their wide emerald leaves among the puffy white clouds. Across the river, a row of crystal castles glittered in the sunlight in a way that would make Walt Disney want to throw rocks at his “Magic Kingdom.” To her right, a golden path led into a sprawling city, where the elaborate domed buildings seemed to be built from brick-size jewels—each structure a different color. Snowcapped mountains surrounded the lush valley, and the crisp, cool air smelled like cinnamon and chocolate and sunshine.

Helen of Troy Does Counter Dancing The world is full of women who'd tell me I should be ashamed of myself if they had the chance. Quit dancing. Get some self-respect and a day job. Right. And minimum wage, and varicose veins, just standing in one place for eight hours behind a glass counter bundled up to the neck, instead of naked as a meat sandwich. Selling gloves, or something. Instead of what I do sell. You have to have talent to peddle a thing so nebulous and without material form. Exploited, they'd say. Yes, any way you cut it, but I've a choice of how, and I'll take the money. I do give value. Like preachers, I sell vision, like perfume ads, desire or its facsimile. Like jokes or war, it's all in the timing. I sell men back their worst suspicions: that everything's for sale, and piecemeal. They gaze at me and see a chain-saw murder just before it happens, when thigh, ass, inkblot, crevice, tit, and nipple are still connected. Such hatred leaps in them, my beery worshipers! That, or a bleary hopeless love. Seeing the rows of heads and upturned eyes, imploring but ready to snap at my ankles, I understand floods and earthquakes, and the urge to step on ants. I keep the beat, and dance for them because they can't. The music smells like foxes, crisp as heated metal searing the nostrils or humid as August, hazy and languorous as a looted city the day after, when all the rape's been done already, and the killing, and the survivors wander around looking for garbage to eat, and there's only a bleak exhaustion. Speaking of which, it's the smiling tires me out the most. This, and the pretense that I can't hear them. And I can't, because I'm after all a foreigner to them. The speech here is all warty gutturals, obvious as a slam of ham, but I come from the province of the gods where meaning are lilting and oblique. I don't let on to everyone, but lean close, and I'll whisper: My mothers was raped by a holy swan. You believe that? You can take me out to dinner. That's what we tell all the husbands. There sure are a lot of dangerous birds around. Not that anyone here but you would understand. The rest of them would like to watch me and feel nothing. Reduce me to components as in a clock factory or abattoir. Crush out the mystery. Wall me up alive in my own body. They'd like to see through me, but nothing is more opaque than absolute transparency. Look - my feet don't hit the marble! Like breath or a balloon, I'm rising, I hover six inches in the air in my blazing swan-egg of light. You think I'm not a goddess? Try me. This is a torch song. Touch me and you'll burn.

Outside, the Air was Alert and Bright and Hot... She could see the pattern of the cross-stitch flowers from the blue cross-stitch counterpane on Ammu's cheek. She could hear the blue cross-stitch afternoon. The slow ceiling fan. The sun behind the curtains. The yellow wasp wasping against the windowpane in a dangerous dzzzzzzzzzzzz. A disbelieving lizard's blink. High-stepping chickens in the yard. The sound of the sun crinkling the washing.Crisping white bed-sheets. Stiffened starched saris. Off white and gold. Red ants on yellow stones. A hot cow feeling hot. Ahmoo in the distance.

The heat finally left space for breathing and crisp air. The trees undressed and coloured the streets and I found myself changing with the season. I so badly wanted to be that force of nature, that fire no one can touch, but I was tired. Tired, tired, tired, of being me and if I had one inch of energy to be something beautiful, I would have, but all I could care about was to make it home before it got dark.

We didn't finish that dance." "Here?" "Why not?" Echo's high heel tapped against the sidewalk, the telltale sign of nerves. I took a deliberate step forward and caught her waist before she coud back away from me. My siren had sung to me for way too long, capturing my heart, tempting me with her body, driving me slowly insane. Now, I expected her to pay up. "Do you hear that?" I aked. Echo raised an eyebrow when she heard nothing but the sound of water trickling in the fountain. "Hear what?" I slid my right hand down her arm, cradled her hand against my chest and swayed us from side to side. "The music." Her eyes danced. "Maybe if you could tell me what i'm supposed to be hearing." "Slow drum beat." With one finger i tapped the beat into the small of her back. "Acoustic quitar." I leaned down and hummed my favorite song in her ear. Her sweet cinnamon smell intoxicated me. She relaxed, fitting perfectly into my body. In the crisp, cold February air, we swayed together, moving to our own personal beat. For one moment, we escaped hell. No teachers, no therapist, no well-meaning friends, no nightmares-just the two of us, dancing. My song ended, my finger stopped tapping the beat, and we ceased swaying from side to side. She held perfectly still, keeping her hand in mine, her head resting on my shoulder. I nuzzled into the warmth of her silky curls, tightening my hold on her. Echo was becoming essential, like air. I eased my hand to her chin, lifting her face toward me. My thumb caressed her warm, smooth cheek. My heart beat faster. A ghost of that siren smile graced her lips as she tilted her head closer to mine, creating the undeniable pull of the sailor lost to the sea to the beautiful goddess calling him home. I kissed her lips. Soft, full, warm-everything i'd fantasized it would be and more, so much more. Echo hesitantly pressed back, a curious question for which i had a response. I parted my lips and teased her bottom one, begging, praying, for permission. Her smooth hands inched up my neck and pulled at my hair, bringing me closer. She opened her mouth, her tongue seductively touching mine, almost bringing me to my knees. Flames licked through me as our kiss deepened. Her hands massaged my scalp and neck, only stoking the heat of the fire. Forgetting every rule i'd created for this moment, my hands wandered up her back, twining in her hair, bringing her closer to me. I wanted Echo. I needed Echo. Her eyes met mine again. "So what does this mean for us?" I lowered my forehead to hers. "It means you 're mine.

Autumn was her favorite season; the leaves had changed from their late-summer dark-green color to a mix of burgundies, oranges, and golds. The cool breeze blew through her hair, and she took a deep breath and appreciated how the crisp air filled her lungs and made everything feel fresh and new.

The morning television had been martial music and generals, admirals, air marshals and police chiefs displaying crisp uniforms and chests full of medals. Carl wondered, as he did during every coup, what all the medals were for; there hadn’t been a war. Maybe they got them for showing up on time to the previous coup.

The leaves drifted silently to the ground in the crisp autumn air. I inhaled deeply, the smell of burning bonfires far, far away enchanting my nostrils. Autumn had come early this year and I was excited for the change in colors that had already begun to take over the trees of the forest that surrounded Grandmother’s house.

I later learned that while Elsie was at Crownsville, scientists often conducted research on patients there without consent, including one study titled “Pneumoencephalographic and skull X-ray studies in 100 epileptics.” Pneumoencephalography was a technique developed in 1919 for taking images of the brain, which floats in a sea of fluid. That fluid protects the brain from damage, but makes it very difficult to X-ray, since images taken through fluid are cloudy. Pneumoencephalography involved drilling holes into the skulls of research subjects, draining the fluid surrounding their brains, and pumping air or helium into the skull in place of the fluid to allow crisp X-rays of the brain through the skull. The side effects—crippling headaches, dizziness, seizures, vomiting—lasted until the body naturally refilled the skull with spinal fluid, which usually took two to three months. Because pneumoencephalography could cause permanent brain damage and paralysis, it was abandoned in the 1970s. There

i want to love you with simple, like a bare singular matchstick. one stroke to ignite with no words spoken by the heated flames of the timber of crimsoned scarlet fire. as it crackles with close separation entangled with the intimacy of firefly ashes choosing to enchantingly dance around in abundant joy. hazily whistling into the glorified heavens making the ebony soot dissolve into the cool crisp air. yearning to be the explosion who burns through your bones as you visualize red ecstasy of a provoked kindle.

A half-moon hung in the sky. Dozens of insects were chirping and buzzing in the garden. I'm so confused, I muttered, leaving Sensei's house. The air rising off the river carried a crisp hint of autumn. Good-night, Sensei. [...] Autumn is here, so at Satoru's place there will be warm things to eat while we drink. Turning in the direction of Sensei, who was now several hundred metres away, I kept speaking to him. I walked along by the river, as if I were having a conversation with the moon. I kept talking, as if for ever.

He was red with anger, except where he was white with rage. When he spoke, his words seared through the air like so many knives, clipped as topiary, crisp as biscuits.

The laughter of children filled the crisp air while off-beat rhythms of knocks and door bells mixed with a chorus of "trick or treat" that sang out into the early evening.

and the fresh air that came in was so crisp and cool, it almost felt like a drug.

I feel a hint of pity for those who don’t get to experience the crisp air and excitement of mountain climbing. Are they ever really awake?

No chains bind me, but I can’t move. Crisp air fills my lungs, yet I can’t breathe.

All these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it!

She inhaled a lungful of crisp air, trying to settle the nerves swilling in her stomach.

Even sheets felt different at the cottage. On certain days...the sheets were aired out in the sun. I slipped in between two crisp pieces of cloth, like a book mark between two pages.

The air was calm and insects had not yet risen off the water, that crisp time of morning before the sun strikes, when it is still cool enough to work out solutions to sticky problems.

There are fall days in October that are so beautiful they take your breath away. The sky is blue and the sun is strong and the air is finally the tiniest bit crisp. Most of the East Coast is already bundled up in their winter coats, but we get to appreciate the last of the sunshine.

Ng Security Industries Semi-Autonomous Guard Unit #A-367 lives in a pleasant black-and-white Metaverse where porterhouse steaks grow on trees, dangling at head level from low branches, and blood-drenched Frisbees fly through the crisp, cool air for no reason at all, until you catch them.

A moon of unsurpassable brilliance flooded the silent landscape with a cruel glare of greenish light, which traced sharp inky shadows of the trees on the rounded white folds. The snow crystals caught and reflected the moonlight upon a myriad facets until I appeared to be walking in a world of sparkling diamonds. The frightful stillness of the woodland at midnight was almost startling – everything seemed to be frost-bound and nerveless. Even the icy air seemed frozen into immobility. The crisp crunch of my footfall appeared to be an unpardonable intrusion, while the scars they made upon the smooth field of scintillating white seemed a positive sacrilege.

It was one of those red-gold early October days, the air crisp and tart as heady as applejack, and even at dawn the sky was the clear, purplish blue that only the finest of autumn days brings. There are maybe three such days in a year. I sang as I lifted my traps, and my voice bounced off the misty banks of the Loire like a challenge. It was the mushroom season, so after I had brought my catch back to the farm and cleaned it out, I took some bread and cheese for breakfast and set out into the woods to hunt for mushrooms. I was always good at that. Still am, to tell the truth, but in those days I had a nose like a truffle pig's. I could smell those mushrooms out, the gray chanterelle and the orange, with its apricot scent, the bolet and the petit rose and the edible puffball and the brown-cap and the blue-cap. Mother always told us to take our mushrooms to the pharmacy to ensure we had not gathered anything poisonous, but I never made a mistake. I knew the meaty scent of the bolet and the dry, earthy smell of the brown-cap mushroom. I knew their haunts and breeding grounds. I was a patient collector.

What was the golden motto embroidered on the hem of my baby's silk dress? We are kin to stars. I reach my hands toward them, spread my fingers and see those diamonds in the black V's between my fanning fingers. To think that I could gather them into my hands, stuff them in my pockets, is folly. But I can reach. It is I, myself, alive now, who reach into the night toward stars. Their light is on my hands. Their light is in my hands. I gasp in the crisp air of earth and know that I am made of what makes stars! Those atoms are burning bright--I lower my hands--why, they are here within me. I am as old as they and will continue as long as they, and after our demise, we will all be born again, eons from now. What atoms they have I cannot know. I cannot call their names, but they are not strangers to me. I know them in my being, and they know me. Little scrap, little morsel, the stars sing to me, we are the same.

It was a perfect autumn day. The sky was that deep blue that one sees only in the heart of fall, and the leaves were reaching their peak of color. The sun was shining, the air was crisp, and it was easy to forget there was evil in the world.

We are gathered here at the end of what Bradbury called the October Country: a state of mind as much as it is a time. All the harvests are in, the frost is on the ground, there’s mist in the crisp night air and it’s time to tell ghost stories.

At dawn ... the sky is milky white with big marshmallow clouds forming over the mountains. On a spring morning, the air is so crisp and clean that it almost tickles when you take a deep breath. ... No matter where you live, adventure is lurking.

It was cold, it was freezing, actually; my breath formed white clouds as I stood on the snow-covered doorstep and clapped my hands. I set off to crunch through the icy crust covering the courtyard. Icicles hung from rooftops, frost sparkled over dark grey slates under a crisp blue sky, the sun shone and all felt well with the world. Admittedly, there were a couple of corpses in the Kirk, and I was now apparently being haunted, not to mention the missing skull and the creepy curse; but apart from all that, it felt marvellous to be out in the fresh air.

As they walked up the hill, their breaths puffing into the crisp air, Émile glanced at Armand, Henri walking at his side. Did he seem better? Was he getting better? Émile thought so, but he also knew it was the internal injuries that did the most damage. The worst was always hidden.

The six elephants stood, roped each by the foreleg side by side in the vast thirty-foot tent put up several days since for their comfort; their trunks peacefully swaying as the cowardie scuttled back and forth with limp forkloads of hay. Small puffs of steam came from their mouths. Their breath was sweet, filling the sun-warmed, crisp air; and their hides, soothed, clean and lustrous from the water, lay calm on their great hips like the skin of the moon. Only at the end of the line the great bull stirred a little, the towering back swathed and padded and the knowing eye blurred.

New York bakes in a cess of gritty fug all summer, and congeals into gray slush all winter. There are a couple of days in the spring and autumn when the sky is madonna blue, the air crisp, and the light bright and sparkling, and that’s when they take the pictures and make the romantic comedies.

I immersed myself in my relationship with my husband, in little ways at first. Dutch would come home from his morning workout and I’d bring him coffee as he stepped out of the shower. He’d slip into a crisp white shirt and dark slacks and run a little goop through his hair, and I’d eye him in the mirror with desire and a sultry smile that he couldn’t miss. He’d head to work and I’d put a love note in his bag—just a line about how proud I was of him. How beautiful he was. How happy I was as his wife. He’d come home and cook dinner and instead of camping out in front of the TV while he fussed in the kitchen, I’d keep him company at the kitchen table and we’d talk about our days, about our future, about whatever came to mind. After dinner, he’d clear the table and I’d do the dishes, making sure to compliment him on the meal. On those weekends when he’d head outside to mow the lawn, I’d bring him an ice-cold beer. And, in those times when Dutch was in the mood and maybe I wasn’t, well, I got in the mood and we had fun. As the weeks passed and I kept discovering little ways to open myself up to him, the most amazing thing happened. I found myself falling madly, deeply, passionately, head-over-heels in love with my husband. I’d loved him as much as I thought I could love anybody before I’d married him, but in treating him like my own personal Superman, I discovered how much of a superhero he actually was. How giving he was. How generous. How kind, caring, and considerate. How passionate. How loving. How genuinely good. And whatever wounds had never fully healed from my childhood finally, at long last, formed scar tissue. It was like being able to take a full breath of air for the first time in my life. It was transformative. And it likely would save our marriage, because, at some point, all that withholding would’ve turned a loving man bitter. On some level I think I’d known that and yet I’d needed my sister to point it out to me and help me change. Sometimes it’s good to have people in your life that know you better than you know yourself.

The ground was uneven, treacherous with roots, but the pine needles were soft underfoot. For a moment, despite my foul mood, I felt it: the crisp northern Michigan delight. A slight chill to the air, even in August, something almost Russian. The indigo sky above the black bay. The smell of cedar and pine.

The high meridian of the day is past, And Ocean now, reflecting the calm Heaven, Is of cerulean hue; and murmurs low The tide of ebb, upon the level sands. The sloop, her angular canvas shifting still, Catches the light and variable airs That but a little crisp the summer sea. Dimpling its tranquil surface.

New York in November really does have a special charm to it. The air is clear and crisp, and the leaves on the trees in Central Park are just beginning to turn golden. The sky is so clear you can see forever, and the skyscrapers lavishly reflect the sun’s rays. You feel you can keep on walking one block after another without end. Expensive cashmere coats fill the windows at Bergdorf Goodman, and the streets are filled with the delicious smell of roasted pretzels.

She pulled off the road when she was halfway there, parking the car in a spot where the grass had turned from supple green to crisp gold. The air in midafternoon was laced with the smell of things gone to ground. Beech leaves curled in on themselves, brushed with the dull finish of autumn; the shadbush blazed scarlet.

Let’s not go home yet,” I say. “Let’s go somewhere.” Peter thinks about it for a minute, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, and then he says, “I know where we can go.” “Where?” “Wait and see,” he says, and he puts the windows down, and the crisp night air fills the car. I lean back into my seat. The streets are empty; the lights are off in most of the houses. “Let me guess. We’re going to the diner because you want blueberry pancakes.” “Nope.” “Hmm. It’s too late to go to Starbucks, and Biscuit Soul Food is closed.” “Hey, food isn’t the only thing I think about,” he objects. Then: “Are there any cookies left in that Tupperware?

Brooding weather all day, then a furious downpour, then brilliant late afternoon sun, the air crisp and clean and everything dripping happily, all creatures emerged blinking and capering, the sky crammed with wheeling swifts, you could see for miles, the air so freshly washed that your lungs grinned. You know what I mean.

The morning, like all San Francisco mornings, promised spring. In California, the seasons come daily: spring, the dewy mornings draped lightly in gray mist; summer, when the sun burns through and rises directly overhead at midday; afternoon autumns, crisp breezy, when colors show off and the air smells clean into twilight; winter is the night.

Was that really and truly what people were secretly feeling everywhere? Was that what, ultimately, war did to you? It was not the physical dangers—the mines at sea, the bombs from the air, the crisp ping of a rifle bullet as you drove over a desert track. No, it was the spiritual danger of learning how much easier life was if you ceased to think…

I've been keeping an eye out for the Charlie Brown Valentine's Day special. I know it will be on soon, and I never miss a Charlie Brown special. The best one is the Halloween show about the Great Pumpkin - which I've only missed one year in my life, due to the local ABC station having technical difficulties - but all the Peanuts shows make me feel like I'm one step closer to Halloween. The thing I like about the shows isn't the characters - it's the background. The colors are so amazing it almost takes my breath away. Every time I watch The Great Pumpkin I feel like I'm going to have a seizure during the scenes where Snoopy is in a dogfight. Just look at the background in those scenes. It really is too much to take. I can barely keep from holding my head in my hands and involuntarily groaning like I have a mouthful of the best chocolate cake ever made. I look at them and can literally smell the crisp autumn air - even in this cell. No horror movie in the world makes me feel the magick of Halloween as strongly as The Great Pumpkin.

I’d pay a million dollars to be Alice and Elisabeth’s age again for just one day. I’d dance like Olivia’s butterfly and bite into crisp green apples and run across hot sand into the surf, and I’d walk, as far as I wanted, wherever I wanted, in big loping, leaping strides, with my head held high and my lungs filling with air. And I’d probably have sex!

She sat out on her balcony and watched the sun go down. The sky was so flush with color it looked ripe as a berry. Slowly, the color drained to a velvet dark. The humidity broke, and the air held a crispness that signified the approach of fall. Already, the first of the maple leaves had fallen to the driveway, curling in on themselves like dark, dying buds.

The air had a cool crispness to it and the leaves on the trees had begun turning yellow and red.

Like I was fire and she was crisp, clean air, and if I couldn’t breathe her in, I’d disappear.

Something about the crisp, cool air, the twinkling carnival lights, and the scent of deep-fried food provided the perfect atmosphere for reckless teenage abandon.

The air has that crisp, early fall feeling, and people are already lining their steps with pumpkins. I love that. I've loved it since I was a kid.

Summer came whirling out of the night and stuck fast. One morning late in November everybody got up at Cloudstreet and saw the white heat washing in through the windows. The wild oats and buffalo grass were brown and crisp. The sky was the color of kerosene. The air was thin and volatile. Smoke rolled along the tracks as men began to burn off on the embankment. Birds cut singing down to a few necessary phrases, and beneath them in the streets, the tar began to bubble. The city was full of Yank soldiers; the trams were crammed to standing with them. The river sucked up the sky and went flat and glittery right down the middle of the place and people went to it in boats and britches and barebacked. Where the river met the sea, the beaches ran north and south, white and broad as highways in a dream, and men and babies stood in the surf while gulls hung in the haze above, casting shadows on the immodest backs of the oilslicked women.

Vegetables cooked for salads should always be on the crisp side, like those trays of zucchini and slender green beans and cauliflowerets in every trattoria in Venice, in the days when the Italians could eat correctly. You used to choose the things you wanted: there were tiny potatoes in their skins, remember, and artichokes boiled in olive oil, as big as your thumb, and much tenderer...and then the waiter would throw them all into an ugly white bowl and splash a little oil and vinegar over them, and you would have a salad as fresh and tonic to your several senses as La Primavera. It can still be done, although never in the same typhoidic and enraptured air. You can still find little fresh vegetables, and still know how to cook them until they are not quite done, and chill them, and eat them in a bowl.

Right now, I feel sane. I know that deep down, I don't really want to die. I like looking outside at the clouds touching the trees. I like the crisp air in my lungs. I am content being here. But tonight, that could change. Tomorrow, it could change. There's no telling what will trigger me. What will make me throw in the towel? I know I'm sick. But in those dark moments... I can't seem to think rationally. Not sane.

The smell of thyme was pungent in the air. It grew wild by the roadside. Thyme improves the memory, Joe used to say. He used to make a syrup out of it, keeping it in a bottle in the pantry. Two tablespoonsful every morning before breakfast. That clear greenish liquid smelled exactly like the night air over Lansquenet, crisp and earthy and nostalgic, like a summer day's weeding in the herb garden, and the radio on...

Above the counter where the ranks of crisp shapes behind the glass her neat gray face her hair tight and sparse from her neat gray skull, spectacles in neat gray rims riding approaching like something on a wire, like a cash box in a store. She looked like a librarian. Something among dusty shelves of ordered certitudes long divorced from reality, desiccating peacefully, as if a breath of that air which sees injustice done

I didn't mean to upset you, Ms. Hamilton," his gaze shifted back to her. "It's a beautiful sight and I thought you'd like to see it." She gasped in delight at the vista before her. Distant purple mountains framed lush green meadows speckled with brown dots of cattle. A silver river threaded through clumps of trees. In the middle of the valley, ranch buildings clustered around a large white house. Elizabeth inhaled crisp air into her lungs...

Lucy headed home, taking Charles Avenue over to Oak Grove, where some of the loveliest gardens in town resided. She walked alen the sidewalk, lingering longer in the shady patches, admiring the rose-bushes in riotous palettes of red, pink, yellow, and mauve. They spilled out over fences, showy and untamed, perfuming the air with their spicy-sweet scent. She understood that such inflated beauty was likely the result of witchcraft, but that didn't lessen its allure.

The air is crisp on my skin, and though my hands are wrapped under thick gloves, I shove my fists into my pockets anyway. The wind penetrates here through every layer, including skin. I’m dressed in fur so thick that walking feels like an exertion. It slows me down more than I would like, and even though I know there’s no imminent threat of attack, I still don’t like being unprepared in case one comes. It shakes me more than the cold ever could. When I turn to Lira, the ends of her hair are white with frost. “Try not to breathe,” I tell her. “It might get stuck halfway out.” Lira flicks up her hood. “You should try not to talk then,” she retorts. “Nobody wants your words being preserved for eternity.” “They’re pearls of wisdom, actually.” I can barely see Lira’s eyes under the mass of dark fur from her coat, but the mirthless curl of her smile is ever-present. It lingers in calculated amusement as she considers what to say next. Readies to ricochet the next blow. Lira pulls a line of ice from her hair, artfully indifferent. “If that is what pearls are worth these days, I’ll make sure to invest in diamonds.” “Or gold,” I tell her smugly. “I hear it’s worth its weight.” Kye shakes the snow from his sword and scoffs. “Anytime you two want to stop making me feel nauseated, go right ahead.” “Are you jealous because I’m not flirting with you?” Madrid asks him, warming her finger on the trigger mechanism of her gun. “I don’t need you to flirt with me,” he says. “I already know you find me irresistible.” Madrid reholsters her gun. “It’s actually quite easy to resist you when you’re dressed like that.” Kye looks down at the sleek red coat fitted snugly to his lithe frame. The fur collar cuddles against his jaw and obscures the bottoms of his ears, making it seem as though he has no neck at all. He throws Madrid a smile. “Is it because you think I look sexier wearing nothing?” Torik lets out a withering sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose. I’m not sure whether it’s from the hours we’ve gone without food or his inability to wear cutoffs in the biting cold, but his patience seems to be wearing thin. “I could swear that I’m on a life-and-death mission with a bunch of lusty kids,” he says. “Next thing I know, the lot of you will be writing love notes in rum bottles.” “Okay,” Madrid says. “Now I feel nauseated.

Morning dawned bright and sparkling after the rain. The air was keen and crisp. The cedars glistened as if decked with diamonds. Pan felt the sweet scent of the damp dust, and it gave him a thrill and a longing for the saddle and the open country.

This is one other thing I know: without autumn, there is no end. Without red and gold and orange there is no finality, no conclusion. Without the sudden shift in the air, without the scent of apples and the crisp chill of morning, summer could go on forever. Without fall, summer lingers. There is a marvelous limbo where I live now, without the changing of seasons. No blazing display to signify the end of everything good. Perhaps this is what drew me to California. A place where time is suspended.

She could picture it now, a huge stack of fluffy pumpkin waffles with maple syrup and spiced cinnamon butter, the perfect breakfast for fall. Something that tasted like crisp, cool air and golden-orange leaves and bundling up in her favorite sweater. Something that tasted like home.

It was so easy to romanticise romance because it was everywhere. It was in music and on TV and in filtered Instagram photos. It was in the air, crisp and alive with fresh possibility. It was in falling leaves, crumbling wooden doorways, scuffed cobblestones and fields of dandelions. It was in the touch of hands, scrawled letters, crumpled sheets and the golden hour. A soft yawn, early morning laughter, shoes lined up together by the door. Eyes across the dance floor. I could see it all, all the time, all around, but when I got closer, I found that nothing was there. A mirage.

Smells good," Leo called from the front room, where he was sitting in his favorite chair by the stove, the dog curled up on a blanket in front of the fire. Mac lifted his nose and sniffed the air. "He thinks so, too." "The dog knows his apples." Alice laughed. "He should. He's named after one.

It is so rare to have a new tent appear that Celia considers canceling her performances entirely in order to spend the evening investigating it. Instead she waits, executing her standard number of shows, finishing the last a few hours before dawn. Only then does she navigate her way through nearly empty pathways to find the latest edition to the circus. The sign proclaims something called the Ice Garden. and Celia smiles at the addendum below which contains an apology for any thermal inconvenience. Despite the name, she is not prepared for what awaits her inside the tent. It is exactly what the sign described. But it is so much more than that. There are no stripes visible on the walls, everything is sparkling and white. She cannot tell how far it stretches, the size of the tent obscured by cascading willows and twisting vines. The air itself is magical. Crisp and sweet in her lungs as she breathes, sending a shiver down to her toes that is caused by more than the forewarned drop in temperature. There are no patrons in the tent as she explores, circling alone around trellises covered in pale roses and a softly bubbling, elaborately carved fountain. And everything, save for occasional lengths of whet silk ribbon strung like garlands, is made of ice. Curious, Celia picks a frosted peony from its branch, the stem breaking easily. But the layered petals shatter, falling from her fingers to the ground, disappearing in the blades of ivory grass below. When she looks back at the branch, an identical bloom has already appeared. Celia cannot imagine how much power and skill it would take not only to construct such a thing but to maintain it as well. And she longs to know how her opponent came up with the idea. Aware that each perfectly structured topiary, every detail down to the stones that line the paths like pearls, must have been planned.

Milo nibbled carefully at the letter and discovered that it was quite sweet and delicious — just the way you’d expect an A to taste. “I knew you’d like it,” laughed the letter man, popping two G’s and an R into his mouth and letting the juice drip down his chin. “A’s are one of our most popular letters. All of them aren’t that good,” he confided in a low voice. “Take the Z, for instance — very dry and sawdusty. And the X? Why, it tastes like a trunkful of stale air. That’s why people hardly ever use them. But most of the others are quite tasty. Try some more.” He gave Milo an I, which was icy and refreshing, and Tock a crisp, crunchy C.

It started as a beautiful, sunny Saturday, with the air so clear and crisp, one couldn't help but inhale deep breaths of the cleansing freshness, and feel as if a multitude of God's benevolent blessings must be shining down upon the entire world. Terrorism, disease, poverty and hunger, grief and despair were distant threads of reality, too dim to possibly exist.

There was something wonderful about the atmosphere at Stony Cross Park. One could easily imagine it as some magical place set in some far-off land. The surrounding forest was so deep and thick as to be primeval in appearance, while the twelve-acre garden behind the manor seemed too perfect to be real. There were groves, glades, ponds, and fountains. It was a garden of many moods, alternating tranquility with colorful tumult. A disciplined garden, every blade of grass precisely clipped, the corners of the box hedges trimmed to knife blade crispness. Hatless, gloveless, and infused with a sudden sense of optimism, Annabelle breathed deeply of the country air. She skirted the edge of the terraced gardens at the back of the manor and followed a graveled path set between raised beds of poppies and geraniums. The atmosphere soon became thick with the perfume of flowers, as the path paralleled a drystone wall covered with tumbles of pink and cream roses. Wandering more slowly, Annabelle crossed through an orchard of ancient pear trees, sculpted by decades into fantastic shapes. Farther off, a canopy of silver birch led to woodland beds that appeared to melt seamlessly into the forest beyond.

The New York sidewalk led us along a little corner park rimmed with yellow-orange and violet pansies that seemed to be smiling, their faces upturned, and past a bagel shop that smelled of sesame and salt, delicious warm air. We passed an empty wine bar with a pink chandelier, whimsical and dim inside, and a neighborhood diner with its blue neon sign huge and lit up, little white line-cook hats—the city seemed in my vision like a multifaceted gem, spectacular. I wished I could keep everything I witnessed like a photograph, to forever hold this electric aliveness. The colors of the flowers and the clothing were crisp and rosy, hyper-bright against the subdued sun-drenched pigments of the streets and the brick buildings, all seeming faded, softer than real. Pops of coral and red—a scarf, a lady’s lips—were pops of life.

There is one in this tribe too often miserable - a child bereaved of both parents. None cares for this child: she is fed sometimes, but oftener forgotten: a hut rarely receives her: the hollow tree and chill cavern are her home. Forsaken, lost, and wandering, she lives more with the wild beast and bird than with her own kind. Hunger and cold are her comrades: sadness hovers over, and solitude besets her round. Unheeded and unvalued, she should die: but she both lives and grows: the green wilderness nurses her, and becomes to her a mother: feeds her on juicy berry, on saccharine root and nut. There is something in the air of this clime which fosters life kindly: there must be something, too, in its dews, which heals with sovereign balm. Its gentle seasons exaggerate no passion, no sense; its temperature tends to harmony; its breezes, you would say, bring down from heaven the germ of pure thought, and purer feeling. Not grotesquely fantastic are the forms of cliff and foliage; not violently vivid the colouring of flower and bird: in all the grandeur of these forests there is repose; in all their freshness there is tenderness. The gentle charm vouchsafed to flower and tree, - bestowed on deer and dove, - has not been denied to the human nursling. All solitary, she has sprung up straight and graceful. Nature cast her features in a fine mould; they have matured in their pure, accurate first lines, unaltered by the shocks of disease. No fierce dry blast has dealt rudely with the surface of her frame; no burning sun has crisped or withered her tresses: her form gleams ivory-white through the trees; her hair flows plenteous, long, and glossy; her eyes, not dazzled by vertical fires, beam in the shade large and open, and full and dewy: above those eyes, when the breeze bares her forehead, shines an expanse fair and ample, - a clear, candid page, whereon knowledge, should knowledge ever come, might write a golden record. You see in the desolate young savage nothing vicious or vacant; she haunts the wood harmless and thoughtful: though of what one so untaught can think, it is not easy to divine. On the evening of one summer day, before the Flood, being utterly alone - for she had lost all trace of her tribe, who had wandered leagues away, she knew not where, - she went up from the vale, to watch Day take leave and Night arrive. A crag, overspread by a tree, was her station: the oak-roots, turfed and mossed, gave a seat: the oak-boughs, thick-leaved, wove a canopy. Slow and grand the Day withdrew, passing in purple fire, and parting to the farewell of a wild, low chorus from the woodlands. Then Night entered, quiet as death: the wind fell, the birds ceased singing. Now every nest held happy mates, and hart and hind slumbered blissfully safe in their lair. The girl sat, her body still, her soul astir; occupied, however, rather in feeling than in thinking, - in wishing, than hoping, - in imagining, than projecting. She felt the world, the sky, the night, boundlessly mighty. Of all things, herself seemed to herself the centre, - a small, forgotten atom of life, a spark of soul, emitted inadvertent from the great creative source, and now burning unmarked to waste in the heart of a black hollow. She asked, was she thus to burn out and perish, her living light doing no good, never seen, never needed, - a star in an else starless firmament, - which nor shepherd, nor wanderer, nor sage, nor priest, tracked as a guide, or read as a prophecy? Could this be, she demanded, when the flame of her intelligence burned so vivid; when her life beat so true, and real, and potent; when something within her stirred disquieted, and restlessly asserted a God-given strength, for which it insisted she should find exercise?

It is the quiet of the night that I adore the most. It makes me wander in paths and times that seem so distinct, so distant in the light of a bright chirpy day. Oh, I love to talk and I love to hear, form connections, live the passion of Life throbbing with the fervour of colours and stories. But the dark, the stillness of the night makes me see the rivulets of light that walk in my soul. As if they talk to me, like an unsung melody, a poem scattered in bits and pieces, holding my breath to a dawn. They walk through my soul and ask me to keep my senses open as I inhale the peace of night where only the murmur of the stars dance in a serenade of a lover's dream, as if to paint a shadow of colours woven in the misty echo of an infinite lullaby. I love the night air so cold yet so crisp clutching us in a passionate embrace where we give way to all that a heart desires, some make poems some heal wounds and some sleep in the arms of love, while every soul wears its real and most vulnerable yet most whole self. And there as I watch my soul bathed in the halo of stillness, I see how the silence of the night gives in to the chirping of the birds, while the stars walk into their cocoon to let the Sun smile through the breathing dawn. Only a moment, when the night holds us in a mirror for a second or for a fraction of a second and when the morn seeps in to let Life jump in with a thousand voices. Only a moment. And yet that moment is so pure so beautiful to let us soak and even hold on to that stillness of night as much as we can through our heart, and every bit of our soul. I sit in awe, not only to behold the glory of the Morn but also to absorb the depth of the Night, for it is the quiet of the night that I adore the most.

Georgia closed her eyes and concentrated on the sensations of the island--- the bracing, spicy scent of evergreen needles, the briny creaminess of an oyster still in its shell, the chewy, viscous luxury of Star's honey on the comb, the light acidity of a local cider. And then she cooked what she felt, that sense of wonder, the lightness and clean sea salt air. A sprinkle of salt, the crispness of fresh vegetables, the unctuous luxury of good olive oil.

They began with a winter soup, lovingly cooked in a copper pot with a shinbone left over from Sunday lunch- But the witch brought in a light bouillon, simmered with the sweetest of baby shallots and scented with ginger and lemongrass and served with croutons so crisp and small that they seemed to vanish in her mouth- The mother brought in the second course. Sausages and potato mash; a comforting dish the child always loved, with sticky onion marmalade- But the witch brought in a brace of quail that had been gorged on ripe figs all their lives, now roasted and stuffed with chestnuts and foie gras and served with a coulis of pomegranate- Now the mother was close to despair. She brought dessert: a stout apple pie, made to her mother's recipe. But the witch had made a pièce montée: a pastel-colored sugared dream of almonds, summer fruit, and pastries like a puff of air, all scented with rose and marshmallow cream, and served with a glass of Château d'Yquem-

Such moments are too often lost, the private interludes between the tribal gatherings, the transit between destinations, when the city becomes an intimate landscape, a secret shared by two. This was once their neighborhood and she wants to reclaim it for a little while, to walk past the apartment where they spent so much of their lives, even if it makes her sad thinking of all that transpired there, and all that’s lost. It makes her melancholy to imagine that she might never be here again, that these blocks, their former haunts, and their old building will outlast them; that the city is supremely indifferent to their transit through its arteries, and to their ultimate destination. For now, she wants just to be in between. She knows that later it won’t be the party she will remember so much as this, the walk with her husband in the crisp autumn air, bathed in the yellow metropolitan light spilling from thousands of windows, this suspended moment of anticipation before arrival.

He spent the morning at the beach. He had no idea which one, just some open stretch of coastline reaching out to the sea. An unbroken mantle of soft grey clouds was sitting low over the water. Only on the horizon was there a glimmer of light, a faint blue band of promise. The beach was deserted, not another soul on the vast, wide expanse of sand that stretched out in front of him. Having come from the city, it never ceased to amaze Jejeune that you could be that alone in the world. He walked along the beach, feeling the satisfying softness as the sand gave way beneath his slow deliberate strides. He ventured as close to the tide line as he dared, the white noise of the waves breaking on the shingles. A set of paw prints ran along the sand, with an unbroken line in between. A small dog, dragging a stick in its mouth. Always the detective, even if, these days, he wasn’t a very good one. Jejeune’s path became blocked by a narrow tidal creek carrying its silty cargo out to the sea. On each side of it were shallow lagoons and rock pools. When the tide washed in they would teem with new life, but at the moment they looked barren and empty. Jejeune looked inland, back to where the dark smudge of Corsican pines marked the edge of the coast road. He traced the creek’s sinuous course back to where it emerged from a tidal salt flat, and watched the water for a long time as it eddied and churned, meeting the incoming tide in an erotic swirl of water, the fresh intermingling with the salty in a turbulent, roiling dance, until it was no longer possible to tell one from the other. He looked out at the sea, at the motion, the color, the light. A Black-headed Gull swooped in and settled on a piece of driftwood a few feet away. Picture complete, thought Jejeune. For him, a landscape by itself, no matter how beautiful, seemed an empty thing. It needed a flicker of life, a tiny quiver of existence, to validate it, to confirm that other living things found a home here, too. Side by side, they looked out over the sea, the man and the bird, two beating hearts in this otherwise empty landscape, with no connection beyond their desire to be here, at this time. Was it the birds that attracted him to places like this, he wondered, or the solitude, the absence of demands, of expectations? But if Jejeune was unsure of his own motives, he knew this bird would have a purpose in being here. Nature always had her reasons. He chanced a sidelong glance at the bird, now settled to his presence. It had already completed its summer molt, crisp clean feathers having replaced the ones abraded by the harsh demands of eking out a living on this wild, windswept coastline. The gull stayed for a long moment, allowing Jejeune to rest his eyes softly, unthreateningly, upon it. And then, as if deciding it had allowed him enough time to appreciate its beauty, the bird spread its wings and effortlessly lifted off, wheeling on the invisible air currents, drifting away over the sea toward the horizon. p. 282-3

And then there was him. Devin hummed an icy chill. Both gentle falling snow and roaring storms at the same time. He was the evergreens that thrived in the cold. The crisp stillness in the air, and the dark night full of cold white stars. There was most definitely a pull, and it was overwhelming. More than the thread tugging incessantly in my chest, my whole body wanted to sink toward that comforting chill like it was a giant pile of blankets and I hadn't slept in days. Something told me the weariness in my bones would find comfort there. I could feel it. Taste it. I wanted to run to it. My arms prickled with winter sensations. I wanted to dance in the moonlight, leaving swirls of footprints in the snow. The cold didn't bite like it had only a few minutes ago. My new skin was comfortably warm, and something told me that nothing would chill me to the bone ever again. Even if I hadn't felt Winter's pull, I still felt a pull toward Devin. In his bright eyes I saw only longing; the urge to run to his arms was strong.

Finally there came a crisp blue afternoon, a Sunday, the day after Daylight Saving ended, when they met at the park at three o’clock and hit for so long that the light began to fail. Pip was in an absolute groove with her forehand, Jason was bounding around and achieving his own personal-best low error rate, and although her elbow had begun to ache she wanted never to stop. They had impossibly long rallies, back and forth, whack and whack, rallies so long that she was giggling with happiness by the end of them. The sun went down, the air was deliciously cool, and they kept hitting. The ball bouncing up in a low arc, her eyes latching on to it, being sure to see it, just see it, not think, and her body doing the rest without being asked to. That instant of connecting, the satisfaction of reversing the ball’s inertia, the sweetness of the sweet spot. For the first time since her early days at Los Volcanes she was experiencing perfect contentment. Yes, a kind of heaven: long rallies on an autumn evening, the exercise of skill in light still good enough to hit by, the faithful pock of a tennis ball. It was enough.

This skirmish with Beaverbrook was mostly stage combat. Having been friends for so long, they knew well how to jolt each other’s composure, and when to stop. This was one reason Churchill liked having Beaverbrook in his government and found such value in his near-daily presence. Beaverbrook was never predictable. Exasperating, yes, but always a source of energy and cold-eyed clarity, with a mind like an electric storm. Both men took a certain delight in dictating letters to each other. To both it was like acting—Churchill strutting about in his gold-dragon nightclothes and jabbing the air with a dead cigar, savoring the sound and feel of words; Beaverbrook like a knife thrower at a carnival, hurling whatever cutlery came to hand. The physical character of the resulting letters revealed the men’s contrapuntal natures. Where Churchill’s paragraphs were long and precisely worded, full of complex grammatical structures and historical allusions (in one note to Beaverbrook he used the word “ichthyosaurus”), each of Beaverbrook’s paragraphs was a single, brief knife thrust serrated with short, crisp words, not so much savored as sputtered.

You feel so overwritten you're like a palimpsest; the original girl almost lost under years of scrawling yet you nurture an illusion of beauty, brush your hair in the dark so when your reflection finally catches up with you you stare straight past that older woman to the skateboard dancers behind hitting the frosty air with exuberant grace. On the loose in the morning city reminds you of lovers, catching the tram to work in last night's laddered stockings, the sharp-edged day already intruding like a hangover. It's not the sex you miss or the hotel mornings but the reassurance of strangers and that wild card. Now everything's played out the same, no surprises in the pack except those dealt by disaster. Early this morning such certainty dragged on your thoughts they stumbled flat-footed through the breakfast silence and you knew neither the apples orchard fresh, crisp as snow nor the blue bowl they posed in were enough. People disappear all the time, emerge like summer snakes newly marked and glittering into a clean desert. Without the photo of a child you carry in your wallet which reminds you who you have become you'd catch a train to Musk or Mollymook, some place your fingers have strayed over. Even thinking that, you turn your face into the wind, keep walking that same old line in your new flamboyant shoes. Oh my treacherous heart.

Monday is November 8th,” he says softly. I nod, our eyes holding, the air charged with emotion. “Yeah. The timing is not lost on me.” It’s almost our one-year anniversary. But we’re not celebrating an engagement, or a marriage, or some kind of superficial milestone. We’re celebrating survival. And I will celebrate on Monday. I’ll celebrate by waking up extra early, watching the sunrise with my dogs and hot cup of coffee in hand, and breathing in the crisp, November air. Then I’ll smile. Because I have a hell of a lot to smile about. Dean reaches over the console to my lap, clasping my hand inside his palm. He brushes his fingers over my knuckles and says, “We fuckin’ made it.” A grin spreads across my face—a real, big, genuine grin. “Hell yeah, we did.

It starts with a thwack, the sharp crack of hard plastic against a hot metal surface. When the ladle rolls over, it deposits a pale-yellow puddle of batter onto the griddle. A gentle sizzle, as the back of the ladle sparkles a mixture of eggs, flour, water, and milk across the silver surface. A crepe takes shape. Next comes cabbage, chopped thin- but not too thin- and stacked six inches high, lightly packed so hot air can flow freely and wilt the mountain down to a molehill. Crowning the cabbage comes a flurry of tastes and textures: ivory bean sprouts, golden pebbles of fried tempura batter, a few shakes of salt, and, for an extra umami punch, a drift of dried bonito powder. Finally, three strips of streaky pork belly, just enough to umbrella the cabbage in fat, plus a bit more batter to hold the whole thing together. With two metal spatulas and a gentle rocking of the wrists, the mass is inverted. The pork fat melts on contact, and the cabbage shrinks in the steam trapped under the crepe. Then things get serious. Thin wheat soba noodles, still dripping with hot water, hit the teppan, dancing like garden hoses across its hot surface, absorbing the heat of the griddle until they crisp into a bird's nest to house the cabbage and crepe. An egg with two orange yolks sizzles beside the soba, waiting for its place on top of this magnificent heap. Everything comes together: cabbage and crepe at the base, bean sprouts and pork belly in the center, soba and fried egg parked on top, a geologic construction of carbs and crunch, protein and chew, all framed with the black and white of thickened Worcestershire and a zigzag of mayonnaise. This is okonomiyaki, the second most famous thing that ever happened to Hiroshima.

We begin with an onion soup as smoky and fragrant as autumn leaves, with croutons and grated Gruyère and a sprinkle of paprika over the top. She serves and watches me throughout, waiting, perhaps, for me to produce from thin air an even more perfect confection that will cast her effort into the shade. Instead I eat, and talk, and smile, and compliment the chef, and the chink of crockery goes through her head, and she feels slightly dazed, not quite herself. Well, pulque is a mysterious brew, and the punch is liberally spiked with it, courtesy of Yours Truly, of course, in honor of the joyful occasion. As comfort, perhaps, she serves more punch, and the scent of the cloves is like being buried alive, and the taste is like chilies spiced with fire, and she wonders, Will it ever end? The second course is sweet foie gras, sliced on thin toast with quinces and figs. It's the snap that gives this dish its charm, like the snap of correctly tempered chocolate, and the foie gras melts so lingeringly in the mouth, as soft as praline truffle, and it is served with a glass of ice-cold Sauternes that Anouk disdains, but which Rosette sips in a tiny glass no larger than a thimble, and she gives her rare and sunny smile, and signs impatiently for more. The third course is a salmon baked en papillote and served whole, with a béarnaise sauce. Alice complains she is nearly full, but Nico shares his plate with her, feeding her tidbits and laughing at her minuscule appetite. Then comes the pièce de résistance: the goose, long roasted in a hot oven so that the fat has melted from the skin, leaving it crisp and almost caramelized, and the flesh so tender it slips off the bones like a silk stocking from a lady's leg. Around it there are chestnuts and roast potatoes, all cooked and crackling in the golden fat.

cabin for a long moment. Just looking at it made her smile. It was tiny and whimsical – a cedar sided A-frame with a bright green roof and purple trim, complete with a purple star at the point of the A-frame. It sat in a small open area amongst spruce and alder. The hill tumbled down behind it, offering a wide-open view of Kachemak Bay. She’d been in Diamond Creek, Alaska for almost three years. The sun was rising behind the mountains across the bay, streaks of gold and pink reaching into the sky and filtering through the wispy clouds that sat above the mountains this morning. The air was cool and crisp, typical for an Alaskan summer morning. When the sun was high, the chill would dissipate. A faded blue Subaru pulled into the driveway. Susie climbed out of her car, grabbed some fishing gear and walked to Emma’s truck. “Morning! Sorry I’m late,” Susie said. Emma reached over and took a fishing rod out of Susie’s hands.

But the psychological change accompanying these technologies is more subtle, and perhaps more important. Consciously and unconsciously, we have gradually grown accustomed to experiencing the world through disembodied machines and instruments. As I stood in line to board an airplane recently, the young woman in front of me was primping in her mirror—straightening her hair, putting on lipstick, patting her checks with blush—a female ritual that has been repeated for several thousand years. In this case, however, her “mirror” was an iPhone in video mode, pointed at herself, and she was reacting to a digitized image of herself. I take walks in a federally protected wildlife preserve near my home in Massachusetts. A dirt trail winds for a mile around a lake teeming with beavers and fish, wild ducks and geese, aquatic frogs. Bulrushes and cattails wrap the perimeter of the pond, water lilies float here and there, rippling when a fish goes by. In the winter, the air is crisp and sharp, in the summer soft and aromatic. And a thick silence lies across the park, broken only by the honking of geese and the croaking of frogs. It is a place to smell, to see, to feel, to quietly let one’s mind wander where it wants. More and more commonly, I see people here talking on their cell phones as they walk around the trail. Their attention is focused not on the scene in front of them, but on a disembodied voice coming from a small box. And they are disembodied themselves. Where are their minds and bodies? Certainly not present in the park. Nor can they be located in the electromagnetic waves and digital signals flowing through cyberspace. Only their voices can be found at the other end of their conversations, in the offices and boardrooms and homes of the people they are talking to. They are attempting to be several places at once, like quantum waves. But I would argue that they are nowhere.

He eases himself down to die. He thinks, others can do it and so can I. He inhales something: sweet raw smell of sawdust; from some-where, the scent of the Frescobaldi kitchen, wild garlic and cloves. He sees the movement from the corner of his eye as the spectators kneel and avert their faces. His mouth is dry, but he thinks, while I breathe I pray. 'All my confidence hope and trust, is in thy most merciful goodness...’ In the sky he senses movement. A shadow falls across his view. His father Walter is here, voice in the air. 'So now get up.' He lies broken on the cobbles of the yard of the house where he was born. His whole body is shuddering. 'So now get up. So now get up.' The pain is acute, a raw stinging, a ripping, a throb. He can taste his death: slow, metallic, not come yet. In his terror he tries to obey his father, but his hands cannot get a purchase, nor can he crawl. He is an eel, he is a worm on a hook, his strength has ebbed and leaked away beneath him and it seems a long time ago now since he gave his permission to be dead; no one has told his heart, and he feels it writhe in his chest, trying to beat. His cheek rests on nothing, it rests on red. He thinks, follow. Walter says, ‘That's right, boy, spew everywhere, spew everywhere on my good cobbles. Come on, boy, get up. By the blood of creeping Christ, stand on your feet?' He is very cold. People imagine the cold comes after but it is now. He thinks, winter is here. I am at Launde. I have stumbled deep into the crisp white snow. I flail my arms in angel shape, but now I am crystal, I am ice and sinking deep: now I am water. Beneath him the ground upheaves. The river tugs him; he looks for the quick-moving Pattern, for the flitting, liquid scarlet. Between a pulse-beat and the next he shifts, going out on crimson with the tide of his inner sea. He is far from England now, far from these islands, from the waters salt and fresh. He has vanished; he is the slippery stones underfoot, he is the last faint ripple in the wake of himself. He feels for an opening, blinded, looking for a door: tracking the light along the wall.

As the season changed to autumn and the air turned crisp, we took out our cosy sweaters, snuggled in warm blankets, and found comfort in the little things like warm drinks. While we watched the leaves change their colour from green to yellow, bright orange or red, we came to realize that it was also the right time for us to make a change in our life, to make a new beginning. It has been a different kind of year. Things have changed around here, the circumstances we found ourselves in were like a restless wave. A sudden storm came on, producing wind and hail, changing the rule of the game. From one day to the next, there was little room for manoeuvre left. Where was the fun in that, we wondered. Things just didn’t go well and the situation was getting harder. We could sense along the way that it was time to let go of something that no longer served us. Our instincts told us that the time has come to turn the page, to allow new things to happen and think new thoughts. At first, it was hard to admit that there was no way around it of letting go because we fell in a comfort zone and getting out of it can be uncomfortable. We didn’t want to leave a place that was so familiar to us. New beginnings can be scary. But luckily, the autumn season taught us that change can be beautiful.

Besides the fact that you’re a scoundrel at the gaming tables,” she responded tartly, “I’m beginning to suspect that you’re a womanizing rake.” Christopher grinned leisurely as his perusal swept her. “I’ve been a long time at sea. However, I doubt that in your case my reaction would vary had I just left the London Court.” Erienne’s eyes flared with poorly suppressed ire. The insufferable egotist! Did he dare think he could find a willing wench at the back door of the mayor’s cottage? “I’m sure that Claudia Talbot would welcome your company, sir. Why don’t you ride on over to see her? I hear his lordship traveled off to London this morning.” He laughed softly at her sneering tones. “I’d rather be courting you.” “Why?” she scoffed. “Because you want to thwart my father?” His smiling eyes captured hers and held them prisoner until she felt a warmth suffuse her cheeks. He answered with slow deliberation. “Because you are the prettiest maid I’ve ever seen, and I’d like to get to know you better. And of course, we should delve into this matter of your accidents more thoroughly, too.” Twin spots of color grew in her cheeks, but the deepening dusk did much to hide her blush. Lifting her nose primly in the air, Erienne turned aside, tossing him a cool glance askance. “How many women have you told that to, Mr. Seton?” A crooked smile accompanied his reply. “Several, I suppose, but I’ve never lied. Each had their place in time, and to this date, you are the best I’ve seen.” He reached out and taking a handful of the cracklings, he chewed the crisp morsels as he awaited her reaction. A flush of anger spread to the delicate tips of her ears, and icy fire smoldered in the deep blue-violet pools. “You conceited, unmitigated boor!” Her voice was as cold and as flat as the Russian steppes. “Do you think to add me to your long string of conquests?” Her chilled contempt met him face to face until he rose and towered above her. His eyes grew distant, and he reached out a finger to flip a curl that had strayed from beneath the kerchief. “Conquest?” His voice was soft and deeply resonant. “You mistake me, Erienne. In the rush of a moment’s lust, there are purchased favors, and these are for the greater part forgotten. The times that are cherished and remembered are not taken, are not given, but shared, and are thus treasured as a most blissful event.” He lifted his coat on his fingertips and slung it over his shoulder. “I do not ask that you yield to me, nor do I desire to conquer you. All I plead is that you grant me moments now and then that I might present my case, to the end that we could share a tender moment at some distant time.” -Erienne & Christopher

Although leaves remained on the beeches and the sunshine was warm, there was a sense of growing emptiness over the wide space of the down. The flowers were sparser. Here and there a yellow tormentil showed in the grass, a late harebell or a few shreds of purple bloom on a brown, crisping tuft of self-heal. But most of the plants still to be seen were in seed. Along the edge of the wood a sheet of wild clematis showed like a patch of smoke, all its sweet-smelling flowers turned to old man's beard. The songs of the insects were fewer and intermittent. Great stretches of the long grass, once the teeming jungle of summer, were almost deserted, with only a hurrying beetle or a torpid spider left out of all the myriads of August. The gnats still danced in the bright air, but the swifts that had swooped for them were gone and instead of their screaming cries in the sky, the twittering of a robin sounded from the top of a spindle tree. The fields below the hill were all cleared. One had already been plowed and the polished edges of the furrows caught the light with a dull glint, conspicuous from the ridge above. The sky, too, was void, with a thin clarity like that of water. In July the still blue, thick as cream, had seemed close above the green trees, but now the blue was high and rare, the sun slipped sooner to the west and, once there, foretold a touch of frost, sinking slow and big and drowsy, crimson as the rose hips that covered the briar. As the wind freshened from the south, the red and yellow beech leaves rasped together with a brittle sound, harsher than the fluid rustle of earlier days. It was a time of quiet departures, of the sifting away of all that was not staunch against winter.

I pull the fire escape door open, scoop my eyeshadow palette off the ground and slip back inside. For a moment, I pause in the corridor and catch my breath. Adrenaline is surging through me. Rage. A normal woman would call the police at this point. But a normal woman would never have been paranoid enough in the first place to pretend to go to the toilet, only to sneak out of the fire escape and spy through a window to watch what her date does when he has five minutes alone with her drink. Nope. A normal woman would have gone to the loo, done a pee and topped up her lipstick. Or she’d have texted a friend about her hot date, feeling giddy with hope and excitement. Now, let’s think about what would have happened to a normal woman. A normal woman would have headed back to her date, smiling prettily, before sitting down and drinking her drugged drink. Then, a short while later, that normal woman would have started feeling far more drunk than she normally does after just a couple of drinks, but she’d probably blame herself. She’d wonder if maybe she’d drunk too much. Or maybe she’d blame herself for having not eaten earlier in the day because she didn’t want to look fat in her dress. Or maybe she’d blame herself because that’s just what she does; she blames herself. And then, just as she started to feel woozy and a bit confused, her date would take her outside for some fresh air and she’d be grateful to him. She’d think he was caring and responsible, when really, he was just whisking her out of sight, before she started to look less like she was drunk and more like she’d been drugged. And then the next thing she’d know, she’d be staggering into the back of a cab and her date would be asking her to tell the driver where she lived. And when she’d barely be able to get the words out and her date made a joke to the driver about how drunk she was, she’d feel small and embarrassed. And then she’d find herself slumping into her date’s open arms, flopping against his big manly body, and she’d feel grateful once more that this man was taking care of her and getting her home safe. And then, once the taxi slowed down and she blinked her eyes open and found they’d pulled up outside her flat, she’d notice in a fleeting moment of clarity that when the driver asked for the fare, her date thrust two crisp ten-pound notes towards him in a weirdly premeditated move, as though he’d known this moment was going to happen all along. As though he’d had the cash lined up, the plan set, and she’d feel something. Something. But then she’d be staggering out of the taxi, even sloppier than when she got in, and her legs would be buckling, and she’d cling to her date for support, her make-up now smudged, her eyes half-closed, her hair messy. She’d look a state and he’d ask her which flat was hers, and she’d walk with him to her front door, to the flat where she lives alone. To the place that’s full of books and cute knick-knacks from charity shops and colourful but inexpensive clothes. She’d unlock her front door, her hand sliding drunkenly over the lock, and she’d lead him into the place she’s been using as a base to try to get ahead in life, and then he’d look around, keen-eyed, until he spotted her bedroom and he’d draw her in. And then all of a sudden he’d be in her bedroom and she wouldn’t be able to remember if she’d asked him back or not or quite how this happened, and it would all be moving so fast and her thoughts would be unable to keep up – they’d keep sliding away – and he’d be kissing her and she’d be unsure what was happening as he pulled off her dress and she’d wonder, did she ask for this? Does she want this? Has she been a ‘slut’ again? But the thoughts would be weak, they’d keep falling away and he’d be confident and he’d be certain and he’d be good-looking and he’d be pulling off her bra and taking off her knickers. He’d be pushing himself inside her. The next day, he’d be gone by the time she woke up. She’d be blocked, unmatched...

The Outer Cape is famous for a dazzling quality of light that is like no other place on Earth. Some of the magic has to do with the land being surrounded by water, but it’s also because that far north of the equator, the sunlight enters the atmosphere at a low angle. Both factors combine to leave everything it bathes both softer and more defined. For centuries writers, poets, and fine artists have been trying to capture its essence. Some have succeeded, but most have only sketched its truth. That’s no reflection of their talent, because no matter how beautiful the words or stunning the painting, Provincetown’s light has to be experienced. The light is one thing, but there is also the way everything smells. Those people lucky enough to have experienced the Cape at its best—and most would agree it’s sometime in the late days of summer when everything has finally been toasted by the sun—know that simply walking on the beach through the tall seagrass and rose hip bushes to the ocean, the air redolent with life, is almost as good as it gets. If in that moment someone was asked to choose between being able to see or smell, they would linger over their decision, realizing the temptation to forsake sight for even one breath of Cape Cod in August. Those aromas are as lush as any rain forest, as sweet as any rose garden, as distinct as any memory the body holds. Anyone who spent a week in summer camp on the Cape can be transported back to that spare cabin in the woods with a single waft of a pine forest on a rainy day. Winter alters the Cape, but it doesn’t entirely rob it of magic. Gone are the soft, warm scents of suntan oil and sand, replaced by a crisp, almost cruel cold. And while the seagrass and rose hips bend toward the ground and seagulls turn their backs to a bitter wind, the pine trees thrive through the long, dark months of winter, remaining tall over the hibernation at their feet. While their sap may drain into the roots and soil until the first warmth of spring, their needles remain fragrant through the coldest month, the harshest storm. And on any particular winter day on the Outer Cape, if one is blessed enough to take a walk in the woods on a clear, cold, windless day, they will realize the air and ocean and trees all talk the same language and declare We are alive. Even in the depths of winter: we are alive. It

I am in no rush. Let Life happen to me just as Life has planned. Because at the end of the day, when the sun sets there is always a horizon somewhere waiting to call forth another sun, in a paradox of Time. Because at the end of each chapter, the story walks towards its culmination. But just like it is not in the setting or rising of the sun but in the sunshine that one basks, just like it is not the finishing line but the voyage through the storyline where one finds the true understanding of the book, Life is about exploring the voyage all the while knowing full well that each chapter shall find its beginning middle and end just how it's meant to be. It is about the truth that Life is but a dream in Time's illusion and the only sharp truth is to love and be loved, and through that assemble moments in Time that smile beyond Time, to make a garden of experiences through lessons and understandings that Life puts at our journey only to walk us closer to our destination. It is not about the destination rather about the journey, and perhaps about who we share the journey with at each crossroad. And no matter how Time walks by, until and unless we cross all the alleys along the way, until and unless we climb up the peak bit by bit, we cannot reach that destination where we belong. But if we tread along the mountain peak or a winding alley soaking in all the freshness of the air enjoying the crispness of our walk, the journey becomes even more enriching not just to our soul but to all of our senses and our very heart. While if we try to run along the way, we might actually topple down a bad turn, taking in a scar that might demand another cup of our soul's portion to heal. Such is Life. A journey that takes smiles and tears, a voyage that bathes in hope and hopelessness, but in all of it, it never stays stagnant, always tiptoeing to exactly where we are meant to be, at any point of our journey. So when something seems to go stagnant or few things make no sense, I tell myself to pause and pat my soul acknowledging each and every decision or detour of mine as part and parcel of Life's plan. I close my eyes and breathe in the freshness of air that flows in every part of my soul to know, to feel alive to all that this journey has shared with me, while believing in the grace and magnanimity of Time who takes Time but eventually shows and leads us to where we belong. And I hear my heart smiling, Let Life happen to me just as Life has planned. I am in no rush.

The sun’s high, humidity’s low, the air clean and crisp; the few clouds are pure white and fluffy in the azure September sky; the temperature’s in the low-mid seventies with a cool breeze coming off the water, and it’s impossible to get mad about anything.

We also ate well in the kitchen, and I found that I had inherited my father's palate and appreciation of good food. Our cuisine at home always been rather basic, even in the days when we had a cook, and I became fascinated with the process of creating such wonderful flavors. "Show me how you made that parsley sauce, those meringues, that oyster stew," I'd say to Mrs Robbins, the cook. And if she had a minute to spare, she would show me. After a while, seeing my willingness as well as my obvious aptitude for cooking, she suggested to Mrs Tilley that her old legs were not up to standing for hours any more and that she needed an assistant cook. And she requested me. Mrs Tilley agreed, but only if she didn't have to pay me more money and I should still be available to do my party piece whenever she entertained. And so I went to work in the kitchen. Mrs Robbins found me a willing pupil. After lugging coal scuttles up all those stairs, it felt like heaven to be standing at a table preparing food. We had a scullery maid who did all the most menial of jobs, like chopping the onions and peeling the potatoes, but I had to do the most basic of tasks- mashing the potatoes with lots of butter and cream until there wasn't a single lump, basting the roast so that the fat was evenly crisp. I didn't mind. I loved being amongst the rich aromas. I loved the look of a well-baked pie. The satisfaction when Mrs Robbins nodded with approval at something I had prepared. And of course I loved the taste of what I had created. Now when I went home to Daddy and Louisa, I could say, "I roasted that pheasant. I made that apple tart." And it gave me a great rush of satisfaction to say the words. "You've a good feel of it, I'll say that for you," Mrs Robbins told me, and after a while she even sought my opinion. "Does this casserole need a touch more salt, do you think? Or maybe some thyme?" The part I loved the best was the baking. She showed me how to make pastry, meringues that were light as air, all sorts of delicate biscuits and rich cakes.

The feeling Rin got when Kevin shared space with her, the sense of wonderment, was new, fresh, and crisp. It was the taste in the air when fall turned to winter. Indefinable, yet real.

Morning, the room full of sun. I wheel to the window and watch the robins digging worms in Grandfather's lawn. The grass is blue-wet in the open, green-dry under the pines. The air is so crisp it gives me a brief, delusive sense of health and youth. Those I don't have, but I have learned not to scorn the substitutes: quiet, plenty of time, and a job to spend it on.

I loved every bit of this season—when the air turned crisp and you could pull all the warm sweaters out of the back of your closet. It felt like the equivalent of wrapping yourself up in a warm, cozy blanket with a cup of hot apple cider in your hands. 

In the end, that was the problem with romance. It was so easy to romanticize romance because it was everywhere. It was in music and on TV and in filtered Instagram photos. It was in the air, crisp and alive with fresh possibility. It was falling leaves, crumbling wooden doorways, scuffed cobblestones, and fields of dandelions. It was in the touch of hands, scrawled letters, crumpled sheets, and the golden hour. A soft yawn, early morning laughter, shoes lined up together by the door. Across every dance floor. I could see it, all, all the time, all around, but when I got closer, I found nothing was there. A mirage.

When autumn trees shower bullions are we that Midas stuff, a leaf-fall that sounds the air in crisp syllables? What, what, oh what are we?

hundred pounds a night. She had looked up the prices. She walked into a hyperbolic oriental extravaganza. Her bag had arrived before her. She walked in, uneasily, the wood panelling on the walls set off the scarlet fabrics. The king-size bed was lower than normal and a Ming stone carving stood in the room. She kept away, well away. She stepped out into the private walled garden with an oriental style water feature. The day was dry with a crisp chill in the air. The place was idyllic. It had a charm all its own. The sort of place she would love to bring Oliver.

Tasting him with sober tastebuds is what he must’ve been talking about when he said I tasted like summertime on the PCH because he tastes like the first real day of fall in Texas—when the weather is crisp and that nasty suffocating stickiness isn’t floating in the air.

loving the way his cheeks turned a slight pink in the crisp autumn air.

There’s a steady crispness in the air now as the leaves on the ancient oaks opposite the parking lot rapidly turn brilliant shades of pumpkin, red, and yellow, officiating fall’s arrival. A season I used to loathe due to a few life-altering summers that I never wanted to end.

There is a change in the air. Early morning, when I open the back door, it billows into the kitchen, crisp, cold, and fresh as mint. It makes white clouds of my breath. Winter has decorated ordinary life. Some days everything sparkles, glamorising the lids of bins and the tarmac patchwork of the pavements. Frost etches mysterious patterns on the roof of our car, and the puddles that collect in the gutter are crisp with ice.

There is a different feeling, to be clicking along at a gripping pace while starting up the internals, kind of like the pre-start of a rocket launch protocol, the rapid intake and exhalation of the crisp morning air is an igniter. The actual process of the run is giving my mind the time it needs to get started, and the oxygen-rich blood pumping into my brain is like gasoline on a grass fire. By the time I am headed home, my brain is already filled with energy, awake and afire with the sheer joy of life. Oh, and endorphins. Those are good, too.

I loved shopping on rue Montorgueil so much that I often carted home more food- slices of spinach and goat cheese tourtes; jars of lavender honey and cherry jam, tiny, wild handpicked strawberries; fraises aux bois- than one person alone could possibly eat. Now at least I had an excuse to fill up my canvas shopping bag. "Doesn't it smell amazing?" I gushed once we had crossed the threshold of my favorite boulangerie. Mom, standing inside the doorway clutching her purse, just nodded as she filled her lungs with the warm, yeasty air, her eyes alight with a brightness I didn't remember from home. With a fresh-from-the-oven baguette in hand, we went to the Italian épicerie, where from the long display of red peppers glistening in olive oil, fresh raviolis dusted in flour, and piles and piles of salumi, soppressata, and saucisson, which we chose some thinly sliced jambon blanc and a mound of creamy mozzarella. At the artisanal bakery, Eric Kayser, we took our time selecting three different cakes from the rows of lemon tarts, chocolate éclairs, and what I was beginning to recognize as the French classics: dazzling gâteaux with names like the Saint-Honoré, Paris-Brest, and Opéra. Voila, just like that, we had dinner and dessert. We headed back to the tree house- those pesky six flights were still there- and prepared for our modest dinner chez-moi. Mom set the table with the chipped white dinner plates and pressed linen napkins. I set out the condiments- Maille Dijon mustard, tart and grainy with multicolored seeds; organic mayo from my local "bio" market; and Nicolas Alziari olive oil in a beautiful blue and yellow tin- and watched them get to it. They sliced open the baguette, the intersection of crisp and chewy, and dressed it with slivers of ham and dollops of mustard. I made a fresh mozzarella sandwich, drizzling it with olive oil and dusting it with salt and pepper.

Too eager to wait for supper, Ellen brushed back her hair before the kitchen mirror, put on her cloak, and ran away toward Dorine Wheatley’s home where there was to be a party. Her head was bare in the frosty night and her hair caught the vigour of the air und crisped richly over her forehead. Her dark skirt had been brushed that afternoon and her waist inspected for holes and loose buttons. Her shoes had been viewed in several moods, critically, hopelessly, hopefully, carelessly, mournfully, but in all moods they were old and worn.

Marcus pulled in to Jules’ drive way. His car looked like one you might see an older man driving. Beige, long, some sort of Buick. He didn’t see her waiting on the rocking chair of her screened-in porch. The motion light had no reason to be on since she had been sitting out there for some time, enjoying the crisp evening air. Shaw appeared to be fidgety and nervous. He ran his hands through his tousled hair, trying to comb it through. He checked his nose for random objects and then he grabbed a water bottle and gulped down the entire thing in a matter of seconds. When he finally exited the squeaky car, he brushed down his shirt and jeans to freshen them. It was quite amusing to watch this man. The more nervous he seemed, the more confident she became. Yup, she was going to fuck him. Hard. She was going to fuck him as if her life depended on it, and in some ways it did. Without getting back in touch with this power she had found, she was a meek little girl just following people around. She did it with her parents and then she did it with her ex-husband. Maybe the way she had come to her current power wasn’t the most conventional, but Jules was never meant to be a conventional girl. She tried to fit into the conventional role with Joey for 13 years and was never this happy or strong. 

The three “Geekers” met almost every other day to figure out science riddles, just to keep their thinking sharp during the hot summer months. Today they had landed at Min’s, a white-and-gray modern home with lots of large, shiny windows and square furniture that looked like boxes. Since it was a hundred degrees with 87 percent humidity outside (Min knew it precisely, because at the moment she was studying meteorology), the Geekers were sprawled out in the family room, which was air-conditioned to a crisp seventy-two degrees.

I loved that they trick-or-treated all month here. I loved Halloween. The crisp air, the bright foliage, everything changing and growing a shade darker . . .

When I got back to my room, the people upstairs were having sex again. Rhythmic thumping against the wall. I hated it, but then I felt bad, because maybe it was two people in love. In the end, that was the problem with romance. It was so easy to romanticise romance because it was everywhere. It was in music and on TV and in filtered Instagram photos. It was in the air, crisp and alive with fresh possibility. It was in falling leaves, crumbling wooden doorways, scuffed cobblestones and fields of dandelions. It was in the touch of hands, scrawled letters, crumpled sheets and the golden hour. A soft yawn, early morning laughter, shoes lined up together by the door. Eyes across a dance floor. I could see it all, all the time, all around, but when I got closer, I found that nothing was there. A mirage.

I hit the button that brings down the top of the convertible. As it folds back with a mechanical purr, I can feel the crisp night air crawling down my throat. When I laugh, I swear, I can taste stars. About a half mile from Kay’s,

I hit the button that brings down the top of the convertible. As it folds back with a mechanical purr, I can feel the crisp night air crawling down my throat. When I laugh, I swear, I can taste stars.

He was still holding her hand when Dodie died at 5:20 a.m. Marlon bent over his mother’s body. Carefully, he snipped off a lock of her hair. Then he took her pillow and removed an aquamarine ring from her finger. Clutching these talismans, he made his way outside, where the sun was just coming up. “I felt instantly that she had been transformed into everything that was reflective of nature,” he said. Birds, plants, animals, little children—they were all Dodie. Standing there outside the hospital, in the crisp morning air, Marlon suddenly had a vision (“I actually saw it,” he insisted) of a great bird “floating up and down the face of a cliff.” This was his mother, he believed, rising to the sky. The bird made its ascent to the strains of Ferde Grofé’s “Mississippi Suite,” a stirring orchestral piece Ellen had introduced Marlon to, and which he often found himself humming.

Smell that? Dead leaves, crisp air, the faint wafting aroma of caramel apples. Nothing beats autumn.

I sat in the back with Omar napping against my right shoulder and Mother napping against my left, and I thumbed through the bird book and looked at pictures of all the new birds I had seen, and at the ones I had not seen. It was unimaginable to think that they were out there-all these hundreds, even thousands of birds-and that I had not seen them. I felt both hungry and sated-like a cat, I imagined. With Mother asleep on my shoulder, good crisp air coming in the window, a stomach full of flounder, and two dozen new birds flying through my mind-and returning home-I felt like there couldn't be a more satisfied person in the world. This, in turn, made me hungrier: made me want to see more.

In New England, autumn is the beginning. The lavish start of the year. The colors are deepest purple, red, and orange. The air is crisp when not scorching. It tastes of summer and winter in turns. It's a mix of what was and what is to come. It would have seemed the perfect time to move in. I grew up hearing about the day that bodies covered the bay just steps from our new home on Belle Isle. In a novel, a reader would call it prophetic. Thousands of starling downed a plane within minutes of takeoff. The Electra crash would be a foreshadowing of what was to come, an omen that should have warned us to turn back.

With the ever growing need to provide solutions which focus on the impact of global warming and extreme climate changes in recent years, innovative design and a greener footprint is something Crisp Air Conditioning are fully aware of, striving to achieve this on a daily basis.

The road was hard-packed with snow, and the air was crisp and clean. Orange light flickered in the trees from the fire someone had started by the shore but we’d have been able to see without it: out there the moon reflected off all that snow and made it bright enough to see the happy grin on Percy’s face. That night was warm, all the way up to the low thirties. Which may not sound like much, but when the temps drop regularly into the single digits, twenty-five starts to feel downright balmy.

Fall. Rain. Wind. Depressing! And it was only going to get worse. Chilly, overcast weather was forecast for the rest of November. Then again, October had been beautiful. The autumn leaves glowing red, yellow, and orange; glorious sunshine; blue skies; and a wonderful crispness in the air. But unfortunately those days were gone. It was the first week in November; dead leaves swirled around in the wind, rain clouds hung low over Gothenburg, and the contours of the city dissolved in the damp mist.

He drove east toward Boston with his window open, and the air blowing in felt cooler than it had in weeks. A Canadian front had rolled in during the night, and on this crisp morning the city smelled clean, almost pure. He thought of Mary, his own sweet Mary, and of all the ties that would forever bind him to her. Twenty years of marriage, with all its countless memories. The whispers late at night, the private jokes, the history. Yes, the history. A marriage is made up of such little things as burned suppers and midnight swims, yet it’s those little things that bind two lives into one. They had been young together, and together they had grown into middle age. No woman but Mary could own his past

The world seemed to throb in that moment and reverberate. The buildings appeared clearer, sheening in an autumn crispness; the wind rippled through the grass, and the green shades of each blade waved at the summer-colored sun; the smells in the air—suddenly—vividly smelled of spring and fresh starts; and the world felt still, calm like a winter’s clarity. It all felt somehow more real, and more familiar to Danny, like a memory he had at some point forgotten. And there she stood. His heart skipped a couple of beats. Rapidly, he blinked and said, in a very quiet voice, to the first woman he had ever everythinged. “You shouldn’t be here.

Well, good-bye for now," he said, rolling his neck as if we hadn't been talking about anything important at all. He bowed at the waist, those wings vanishing entirely, and had begun to fade into the nearest shadow when he went rigid. His eyes locked on mine wide and wild, and his nostrils flared. Shock—pure shock flashed across his features at whatever he saw on my face, and he stumbled back a step. Actually stumbled. "What is—" I began. He disappeared—simply disappeared, not a shadow in sight—into the crisp air.

As already mentioned this novel was based on the two-part episode of the same name from The Saint, which starred Roger Moore; part one first aired on Sunday, 8 December 1968, and part two first aired on Sunday, 15 December 1968. The script was written by longtime favorite John Kruse with some minor adjustments by script editor Harry Junkin. Charteris loved the script, saying that “The Fiction Makers fulfils all the promise of the synopsis, and the dialogue has a crisp sparkle which has all too often been lacking in other scripts. It’s true that I still somewhat prefer the treatment of the ending which I suggested. But it is simply a splendid job.

I remember the pissaladière. We stood there watching them cook and eating that soft, oily bread. Back then I was so poor I was living on bread and cheese, and the flavor of olives and anchovies went straight through me." He stopped, and when he spoke again, his voice was lower, as if he was summoning the words from the air. "The wine was flowing, and the celery was crisp. Richard had found some old farmer who gave him a great ripe wheel of Brie that dripped off the edges of the bread. Richard and that crazy chef kept arguing, but it wasn't a fight, it was a seduction." Stella wanted to ask what they had argued about, but she was afraid to interrupt the rhythm of his words. "Richard wanted to keep it simple--- you know how he is--- but that chef had his own ideas. I remember he started dicing fish and mixing it with onions, tomatoes, and little bits of celery. 'Limes!' he said. 'I must have limes!' None of us had ever heard of ceviche, and we were astonished. Then Richard concocted a chicken gratin with a cheese custard on top, and the chef made the most beautiful salad I'd ever seen. He threw everything into it--- pieces of lemon, bits of cheese, and then he took the violets out of the vase and tossed in the petals. It was beautiful.

Remembering the careful way the cooks she'd met chose their ingredients--- the snails at L'Ami Louis, Taeb's saffron, Baldwin's asparagus--- Stella thought Django was more like a magician, conjuring dishes out of thin air. By the time George nudged Stella aside to poke his nose in the door, Lucie was strewing crisp breadcrumbs on top of a thick vegetable potage, and Django was stirring a tart lemon pudding. Downstairs, customers lingered, people who had intended on stopping in for a moment stayed on as increasingly seductive scents wafted through the shop. Unwilling to admit that he was pleased, George tasted the pudding and grumbled, "You've used up all the eggs. And I wanted gingerbread for tonight's reading." "Gingerbread!" Django pulled a face. "Nous sommes en France. I will make something more appropriate." Still standing in the doorway, Stella wondered how he would manage this; he'd used everything in the kitchen except an aged pound cake resembling a rock, a handful of desiccated dried apricots, and the sour milk. "We'll make some coffee." Django was tearing up the stale cake. As she watched, he produced curds from the sour milk, cooked the apricots into jam, and soaked the cake in coffee. With a flourish, he pulled a bar of chocolate from his pocket. "J'ai toujours du chocolat sur moi." He melted the chocolate, stirring in the last of the coffee. "I always have chocolate. You never know when you will need it." Against her better judgement, Stella was charmed. Lucie stood close by, watching him layer the coffee-drenched cake with jam, curds, and chocolate, grabbing each spoon as he finished. "Will you make this for my birthday?" she asked. "No." "Please," she begged. "For your birthday I will make something better.

I open my mouth to say thank you, but the words catch in my throat. Two broad bodies walk through the door quietly chatting among themselves. Each dawning similar grey Armani suits and crisp ties that match InnoTech’s color scheme. But it’s not them that have the air in my lungs evaporating. It’s who’s behind them. No. No. No. Alarm bells in my head start ringing and I can feel a trickle of sweat form along my neck. Of all the people in this city he has to work here? Of course, he does.

The minute I set foot in that house, I knew I was born to live there. The ocean called to me. The sound of the waves crashing on the shore lulled me into drugging bliss. Everything was open and beautiful and new. The air felt lighter and crisp. The four of us walked in—Emilia, me, Vaughn, and his father—and the second I stood in the center of the living room, I knew it was my new home. I turned to Vaughn with a smile. “Let’s keep it.” Without a thought, he turned straight to his parents and narrowed his eyes at them. “Is it too late to rebel against your asses? Because you fucked me over real nice and good this time.” His father patted his shoulder with a patronizing smirk. “Watch and learn, son.” “Not sure I’d be dedicating my life to screwing over my imaginary kids, if we wanted to have them,” Vaughn countered. He still thought I wasn’t into the idea of kids. My silly, silly hubby.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table. That shit is going to look so seasonal. I’m about to head up to the attic right now to find that wicker fucker, dust it off, and jam it with an insanely ornate assortment of shellacked vegetables. When my guests come over it’s gonna be like, BLAMMO! Check out my shellacked decorative vegetables, assholes. Guess what season it is—fucking fall. There’s a nip in the air and my house is full of mutant fucking squash. I may even throw some multi-colored leaves into the mix, all haphazard like a crisp October breeze just blew through and fucked that shit up. Then I’m going to get to work on making a beautiful fucking gourd necklace for myself. People are going to be like, “Aren’t those gourds straining your neck?” And I’m just going to thread another gourd onto my necklace without breaking their gaze and quietly reply, “It’s fall, fuckfaces. You’re either ready to reap this freaky-assed harvest or you’re not.” Carving orange pumpkins sounds like a pretty fitting way to ring in the season. You know what else does? Performing an all-gourd reenactment of an episode of Diff’rent Strokes—specifically the one when Arnold and Dudley experience a disturbing brush with sexual molestation. Well, this shit just got real, didn’t it? Felonies and gourds have one very important commonality: they’re both extremely fucking real. Sorry if that’s upsetting, but I’m not doing you any favors by shielding you from this anymore. The next thing I’m going to do is carve one of the longer gourds into a perfect replica of the Mayflower as a shout-out to our Pilgrim forefathers. Then I’m going to do lines of blow off its hull with a hooker. Why? Because it’s not summer, it’s not winter, and it’s not spring. Grab a calendar and pull your fucking heads out of your asses; it’s fall, fuckers. Have you ever been in an Italian deli with salamis hanging from their ceiling? Well, then you’re going to fucking love my house. Just look where you’re walking or you’ll get KO’d by the gauntlet of misshapen, zucchini-descendant bastards swinging from above. And when you do, you’re going to hear a very loud, very stereotypical Italian laugh coming from me. Consider yourself warned. For now, all I plan to do is to throw on a flannel shirt, some tattered overalls, and a floppy fucking hat and stand in the middle of a cornfield for a few days. The first crow that tries to land on me is going to get his avian ass bitch-slapped all the way back to summer. Welcome to autumn, fuckheads!

He smelled like a storm and the crispness of the air just before the heavens broke apart and unleashed their fury on the world.

October. Best month ever. The air was crisp. The leaves were changing colors in Central Park. And my favorite food cart on 86th Street was serving pumpkin-spice burritos.

Stale beer sticks to wobbling tables. The cigarette machine flashes in the corner, mocking smokers who never have any change on them. There’s no natural light in this pub, so it’s dark and gloomy. The pain on the face of the staff tells its own story: overworked, underpaid, exploited and treated as expendable. I feel at home with them. They’re so scared they will be fired from their terrible jobs, every time I order a beer they ask me if I want any peanuts or crisps, in case between drinks I’ve turned into the dreaded mystery shopper. The air is chewy and weighs heavy on the skin. The fruit machines in the corners don’t make a sound, aware this is the last stop saloon for the drunk few who can’t afford to gamble properly. Everyone here is down to their last pint and pound.

Timid, dim witted eyes peer through the dark shadows of the dense forest and blinked, as the rhythm of the steady rain continued to beat down upon them, through the magic of a Grand Master Wizard. The cold mountain air breathed in wet, fresh and crisp, as the two bumblers huddled together in the forest for warmth and in wait. All within the camp seemed tranquil and calm. Suddenly without warning, the sleeping figures began to glow with the glimmering dust the cagy, old Wizard had deposited around the slumbering camp. The glittering and glimmering powder began to spark and flit all around the army camp with the spirited life of fairy fire bees, or perhaps more to the point, tiny, tormenting furies. Edgerton/Assassins of Dreamsongs 172 For that is what they quickly became, "tiny, tormenting furies"! Men awoke from the night, shrieking and screaming, as if they had been burned . . . for indeed they had! Where the sparkling dust touched, blankets caught on fire and clothes were engulfed in tiny, tormenting flames. The horizon was lit up, as all of the figures in the camp danced around in torment, against the blackness of the night. Men darted about the camp in panic and agony, screaming in supreme surprise and torment. Confused beyond belief, they ran into each other and became entangled in ridiculous heaps of flesh, cloth and hot armor. The whole army became piles of human clumps of torment, writhing on the ground. Panic ruled the night and even the small forest creatures stopped their nightly routines, to stare at the odd sight of the ridiculous creatures; arms and legs flailing about. Two rather comical figures strolled casually into the panic ridden encampment, whistling badly a stale, romantic tune. The two bumblers walked in slow, trembling saunters while whistling and laughing hysterically in fear. They both were as casual, as obvious trembling can allow one to be, when they approached the giant, blond Nobleman chained to the tree. The fairy fire bees bypassed the two bumblers with their tormenting magic. With stuttering steps and downcast eyes, they made their way to the tree and the man who would be King. Garish roared uncontrollably with laughter, at the sight of the writhing army and the two bumblers here for his rescue. Edgerton/Assassins of Dreamsongs 173 "We've c-c-come to s-s-save you my Lord." Godfrey stammered out the words trembling, nearly swallowing his tongue. Both stiffened in absolute fear, as they watched the turmoil the Wizard had caused around them, expecting discovery at any moment! Garish finally found his breath. "Well, let's get on with it! The furies can't last forever, although I wish they would!" "Oh right!" Godfrey fumbled around in his clothes for the magic key Arkin had given him. "The magic key, it must be around here somewhere. Did the Old Man give the key to you Humphrey?" "No, I thought you had it!" Humphrey scowled, already seeing his head in the guillotine. "Well, someone's got to have it!" Garish roared. A brawny guard in agonizing pain turned and caught sight of the fumbling escape. Screaming a battle cry, the burly guard stalked forward, to challenge them. Garish brought the chains up around the brute's neck and crushed him against the tree, the sparkling furies making him shriek for mercy. "Ah . . .here it is!" Godfrey exclaimed finding the magic key in his tunic. The key glowed with a golden power all its’ own, as he fished it from his pocket. His fingers trembled beyond that which he could remember, as he fitted the key into the lock. The chains quickly melted to the ground, to his delight and he laughed, as they all turned to flee. Edgerton/Assassins of Dreamsongs 174 Their escape was immediately hampered by a confrontation with a huge Knight, as he rose from the ground, to challenge them. Garish buried both fists into the giant's stomach, in hammering blows and then bore his powerfully bulk up over his head.

Reading, writing, listening to music, skipping rope, flying kites, taking long walks along the sea, hiking in the crisp mountain air, all serve a joint purpose: these self-initiated acts free us from the drudgery of life. These forms of physical and mental exercises release the mind to roam uninhibited, such collaborative types of mind and body actions take people away from their physical pains and emotional grievances. A reprieve from the crippling grind of sameness allows personal imagination to soar. Imagination, a form of dreaming, is inherently pleasant and restorative. It is within these moments of personal introspection stolen from the industry of surviving that humankind touches upon the absolute truth of life: that there must be something more to living then merely getting by; the fundamental human condition thirsts for a way to improve upon the vestment that shelters our self-absorbed lives.

In the span of one hundred and forty seconds I have transformed once again. I spill out of the seat, and to the back of the white beast, the crisp night air filling my lungs…There is plenty of life out here. Hands shoved into my coat pockets, the laughter of a circus clown echoing in the alleyways between tiny houses, the brick apartment buildings, the long warehouses that extend away from me. And already I can feel my hands on his neck.

when you breathe in your air, it is going to be clean. Imagine the color of clean. This is so clean and so pure that when you feel it enter your body, it wants to get out anything that is bad. As you breathe out, it gets rid of the bad air that dissolves into nothing. Then you breathe in some crisp, pure air and breathe out the bad nasty air again. Just focus on your body and breathing. Good in, bad out. Feel it go through your entire body, especially up through your head. We are going to start going into your brain. Imagine a hallway, it is a long hallway. Picture it. Is it tall or short? Wide or narrow? It has a lot of doors, see the details on the door. The handle is made of what material? Any particular designs? See the hinges, the numbers and vividly see all of it. How much detail can you put into this? Find the detail. You walk down the hall you will notice some doors have a good energy coming from them while others do not.

When he spoke, his words seared through the air like so many knives, clipped as topiary, crisp as biscuits.